Unknown Territory, chapter 22 from The Works, 2009

A Journey in Seeing

A long-term visual memoir by Tineke Storteboom.

Each chapter is published as it is written. Together they form an ongoing book about the development of an artistic practice over nearly four decades.

The year after learning the art of scroll mounting, I found myself looking differently.

I continued making ceramic bowls.

Some were cast in bronze.

Others became the starting point for an entirely unexpected journey.

Almost by accident, I began photographing their glazed surfaces.

At first I thought I was documenting the ceramics.

Instead, I discovered landscapes.

The bowl disappeared.

Reflection became space.

Light became matter.

The photographs no longer referred to an object.

They became places of their own.

I called the series Unknown Territory.

The work was shown in 2009 in the group exhibition Still Life in Art at Museum IJsselstein, where seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes were shown alongside contemporary interpretations. Later that year the series was also exhibited at Galerie Weesperzijde.

Looking back, I realise that this was no longer an investigation into ceramics.

It was an investigation into perception itself.

Unknown Territory was not a place.

It was a way of seeing.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust