Where Art and Encounter Meet

TEFAF Showcase Route 2026 – Maastricht

During TEFAF, Maastricht transforms into an international meeting place for art, collectors, connoisseurs and lovers of beauty.

For a moment, the world is watching.

In my consulting room at the audiological center, I see every day what it means not to be heard.

Not only acoustically, but humanly.

Hearing loss rarely affects just the ear.

It touches connection.

Identity.

Confidence.

Perhaps that is why art and listening are so closely related.

Yet sometimes the real conversation does not begin inside an art fair hall.

Sometimes it begins in a shop window.

This year, together with Bart Hauben Hairstudio, I am participating in the TEFAF Showcase Route 2026. A collaboration that may seem obvious – art in a window – but for me it goes far beyond that.

More Than a Painting

The work displayed here is not decoration.

It is a landscape of color, movement and tension.

Light breaking through.

Darkness not pushed away, but absorbed.

Those who wish to learn more about the specific diptych DS23010 will find further depth here:

DS23010

200 cm x 240 cm

Acrylics on acoustic absorbing canvas

Whoever looks longer does not see a fixed image.

They see a process.

And that, precisely, touches what happens daily in Bart’s chair.

Being Seen

A hairdresser’s chair is a remarkable place.

People share things there they do not say elsewhere.

About loss. About change. About new phases in life. About insecurity. About strength.

You are literally touched. You are looked at.

But more importantly: you are heard.

In my work as an audiologist, I often say:

Hearing is more than just the ears.

It is about attention.

About presence.

About making space for what is.

That happens in therapy.

That happens in art.

That happens in a hairdresser’s chair.

A conversation is more than words.

It is allowing pauses to exist.

It is not filling the silence too quickly.

It is letting the other finish speaking, even when it feels uncomfortable.

Perhaps this is what makes us human: the ability to hold space for someone else’s story.

Art as a Mirror

Art does not need instructions.

It makes no demands.

It invites.

Some see a sunrise in this work.

Others a storm.

Others still, an inner struggle.

Everything is allowed to be there.

That is also what Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has taught me:

not to fight what is present, but to make space for it.

And from that space, to move toward what truly matters.

Art can accelerate that process.

Without using a single word.

TEFAF-Worthy?

What does that actually mean - TEFAF-worthy?

Is it perfection?

Is it price?

Is it international prestige?

Certainly. That too.

But perhaps it is also something else.

Perhaps it is the courage to show something real.

Something not polished smooth.

Something that touches.

For me, this window is not a marketing moment.

It is an encounter between two worlds that are closer than we think.

The world of external transformation.

And the world of inner movement.

Connection.

This collaboration reflects what has driven me for years:

Where Art Meets Science.

Where art, psychology and listening converge.

Where the conversation is as important as the image.

During TEFAF, thousands walk through the city.

Perhaps some will pause in front of this window.

Perhaps they will scan the QR code.

Perhaps not.

But perhaps something else begins.

Perhaps a conversation.

Between two people.

Or between someone and themselves.

Because without the story that longs to be told, there is no art.

And without someone willing to listen, that story remains unseen.

Perhaps art is not an object.

Perhaps art is an invitation to encounter.

An invitation to pause.

To look.

And to truly listen.

And if, in that moment, someone feels seen,

then it has already succeeded.