Art

During a rafting tour in the mountains of Colombia (2010), Tim heard what appeared to be a tattooing machine, a sound he knows quite well. He looked around frantically, trying to locate the source of the sound, but there were no tattoo shops in sight anywhere. Not between the trees and not in the canopy overhead. Laughing, the guide told him that a little bird made the sound. The bird remained invisible, which triggered Tim's vivid imagination. During the rest of the tour he wondered what a bird that made such a sound would look like. When he finally found a piece of paper and a pencil he designed a Tattooing Bird. An ordinary bird, except for the tattooing machine that is its head.  

This playful integration of nature and technology was the first step of what would become the essence of Juffermans ‘artistic work. Over the last fifteen years he has developed a powerful post-apocalyptic vision of the future in which nature has appropriated what humanity has produced. People themselves have disappeared, or possibly gone extinct, but the remains of human civilization are not simply overgrown by wilderness and forgotten; instead, new biotopes have emerged among the ruins where surreal life forms, half animal and half machine, are crawling and buzzing, nesting and hunting. Juffermans’ works explore the interplay between utopia and dystopia and offer an original, thought-provoking perspective on one of the central issues of our time: the lasting impact of our lifestyle upon the earth. The result is a world of vivid images that are both disturbing and strangely charming, both alienating and shockingly familiar.