One step beyond

Daan Botlek is a Rotterdam based illustrator and artist. His visions come to life through the uncommon and ambiguous geometric creations. He uses plain white man figures, which do not follow the rules of geometry or physics in various settings. 

Daan Botlek has illustration educational background nonetheless he devoted most of his free time simply drawing or paining. His ambiguous plane white man figure is his main character, which is either engaged or trapped with himself and/or others; he is multiplied, sleeted or sliced. Botlek uses surrealism, riddles, mathematics, isolation or humor to challenge his reality, but they somehow always follows a certain pattern. Inspired by Protagoras thought that ‘man is the measure of all things’, he places his ‘human’ to be exactly that, a tool to measure the things and situations on his ‘human scale.’ The outcome of his creations comes in form of a drawing, cartoon, mural, installation, pattern or puzzle. He questions the world throughout his artwork by creating paradox situations, which is also the purpose to those that engage - text by URBAN NATION