From San Diego to Berlin

How an artwork from 2013 eventually led to The Hearing Triptych

Sometimes it takes years before you understand what you are really making.

In the summer of 2013, I had the opportunity to work on five large artworks in San Diego for three weeks. Painting day after day. Experimenting. Searching. Doubting. Discovering.

I had already been working as an audiologist for years by then, but as an artist, I still found myself somewhere between dream and reality. I painted, exhibited occasionally, but didn't really dare to call myself an artist yet.

To San Diego

There are moments in a person's life that, in retrospect, turn out to be a turning point. At the time, you often do not recognize them. Only years later do you see that something started to shift.

For me, San Diego was one of those moments.

Among the five works that emerged there was a diptych. A work full of fire, light, movement, and depth. Shades of red, orange, gold, and dark areas that met like lava and horizon at the same time.

I did not know then that this work would accompany me for many years to come.

The remark I never forgot

I still remember a conversation in San Diego very well. I stood there among artists from different countries. People who had dedicated their lives to art. People whom I felt knew what they were talking about. I told a fellow artist about my doubts. About the feeling that I was perhaps, after all, primarily an amateur. That I didn't know if I could even call myself an artist. Together we walked to the diptych that I had made there. He looked silently for a while. Then he pointed to the work and said:

This is a masterpiece.

I remember not really knowing what to answer. He began to explain what he saw.

The structure.

The colors.

The distribution.

The contrast.

The lines.

“Everything works.”

Perhaps that was the first time someone let me look at my own work through the eyes of an artist. Not because I believed him immediately. But because I started to doubt my own doubt for the first time.

Ten years later

The years went by.

My work as an audiologist continued to grow. I guided thousands of people with tinnitus, hyperacusis, and hearing problems. I wrote, gave lectures, developed treatment programs, and tried to understand ever better what hearing actually means.

At the same time, I kept painting.

Until Frank and Maja crossed my path.

During conversations about a possible artwork for their home, their eyes kept returning to that exact work from San Diego.

Of all the works.

Of all colors.

Of all the possibilities.

Exactly that work.

Those colors are for us.

Sometimes a work of art chooses its own path.

What followed were conversations, sketches, and ideas. Not about a copy of the original work, but about a new monumental triptych that would carry the same energy.

The first sketches simply came into being at the table.

Pencil lines.

Dimensions.

Relationships

Thoughts.

Nothing special to an outsider.

But for me, something started to move there again.

The triptych behind the triptych

As the work took shape, I noticed that I started thinking in triptychs more and more often.

Not only as an artist.

Also as an audiologist.

In audiology, there is often talk of sound.

Over the ear.

About hearing loss.

About tinnitus.

But the longer I work in this field, the clearer it becomes that hearing is much more than just sound.

Sound is received as a physical stimulus.

Subsequently, the brain gives meaning to that stimulus.

And ultimately, that meaning is experienced by a person with their own history, emotions, expectations, and life context.

Sound.

Brain.

Human.

Three components that cannot be viewed separately.

Slowly, something grew out of that thought that would later become The Hearing Triptych.

No new scientific model.

No attempt to replace existing knowledge.

But a way to make existing insights more understandable and visible.

A bridge between science and human experience. A bridge between audiology and art.

From canvas to conceptual framework

While the triptych for Frank and Maja continued to take shape, I wrote blogs and essays.

Ideas that once started as paint on canvas found their way into words, lectures, and ultimately a conceptual framework.

It remains special to realize that a work of art sometimes does more than fill a wall.

It can make a thought visible. Open a conversation. Change a space.

Or even create a new way of looking.

For me, the triptych eventually became more than a work of art.

It became a metaphor. A language. A way to explain that hearing is never just about sound.

But always about the interplay between sound, brain, and human.

Yesterday

Yesterday, everything came together.

Together with Tonnie Stafleu from the company DeBlick, we had the opportunity to install the triptych in Frank and Maja's apartment.

A piece of technical precision work.

Three panels, two meters high, that had to form a single unit.

But while we were hanging the work, I wasn't just thinking about the technique.

I thought of San Diego. Of the youthful sense of insecurity with which I started there. Of all the people I was privileged to meet along the way. Of the patients who taught me what hearing truly means.

And to the fact that this same triptych ultimately formed part of the basis for a presentation I will be giving later this year at an international tinnitus congress in Berlin .

I could never have imagined that in 2013.

Where art and science meet

What perhaps touches me most is that this work not only adds something to the appearance of the space.

It also contributes to the acoustics.

In a modern apartment with lots of glass, sleek walls, and hard materials, the work helps to make the space not only more beautiful but also more pleasant.

That is where everything comes together for me.

Art.

Science.

Architecture.

Human well-being.

That is exactly where my motto originated:

Where Art Meets Science.

Gratitude

My thanks go to Frank and Maja for their trust.

To Tony for the craftsmanship with which the work was installed.

And to Martijn Flipse of DeBlick for the collaboration that makes these kinds of special projects possible.

Sometimes an idea doesn't start in a laboratory.

Not behind a desk.

But with a blank canvas, a little courage, and the willingness to create something whose destination you do not yet know.

Perhaps this artwork knew where it wanted to go much earlier than I did.

And perhaps that is ultimately what art does.

Not just showing who you are.

But sometimes also show who you can become.

Perhaps The Hearing Triptych was not just a way to better understand hearing. Perhaps it also helped me to understand myself better.

Hearing is more than just the ears.