INTERVIEW
/NIELS EGIDIUS When you first come across artist Niels Egidius’s current project ‘What it Seems’, you can’t help but feel transported into a Rudyard Kipling novel, deep into a tropical jungle, and that’s exactly what Niels wants you to experience. Based in the Netherlands, music is the driving force when he is in the studio. In our conversation with him, he delves deeper into his creative process, his favourite cartoons growing up and celebrating differences. Could you tell us a bit more about your body of work titled ‘What it seems’? ‘What it seems’ is an illustrated story where I started working on in 2013. I studied Illustration, but I found out that I’m more of a painter who likes to write and make up stories. So in the second year of my education, I decided to work on ‘What it seems’, which turned out to be my graduation project. It started with the subject of being an invader in the tropical 78
rainforest. I was intrigued by footage of an isolated tribe in the Amazon, taken from above out of a helicopter. I was confused by it some way... The footage was meant to protect the tribe from the outside world. To me, this action felt a bit counterproductive or maybe even hypocrite. Afterwards, I dug into stories about voyages of discovery in the Amazon like the Conquistadors did; plundering the native cultures and their belief to find the mythical ‘Eldorado’, the city of gold.