After graduating in graphic design from the Academie St. Joost, van Empel worked briefly as a designer and later as a creative designer specialising in theatre décor. In 1995 van Empel made the transition from stage to staged photography, when he presented his first photographic project entitled ‘The Office’, a series of portraits showing various individuals in workplaces that van Empel had constructed. This initiated the digital collage work for which he would later become known.

Ruud van Empel is one of the most innovative and influential contemporary photographers working today. His pioneering techniques have completely changed the face of digital photography. Using a vast library of digital body parts, fabrics and foliage, van Empel creates dream-like photographic utopias, where nothing is exactly as it seems.

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