About the artist
A still surface can speak volumes, if you look closely.
I’m Jessie van Buggenum, a Dutch visual artist and photographer who finds beauty in the quiet details of lichen-covered landscapes. Through my lens, I reveal abstract, painterly surfaces shaped by time. My work invites viewers to slow down and reconnect with textures often overlooked.
My photographs explore stillness, symbiosis, and resilience: each image captures a moment of ecological collaboration, the slow dance of fungi and algae forming lichen over decades.
My artistic development has been shaped by mentoring and collective learning, including a year-long trajectory with PhOC in Nijmegen (culminating in a group exhibition) and an earlier documentary course with Jeroen Toirkens in Lapland, where I learned the value of slow storytelling, influences that still shape how I work today.
About the work
Explore the symbiosis of nature through meditative photography.
Grounded Compositions began with a fascination with the Nordic concept of friluftsliv: the open-air life built around a close relationship with the natural world. Inspired by the raw elements of Scandinavia, my work focuses on flat, top-down views of stone, bark, and concrete, where lichens create unexpected, textured worlds.
These images aren’t traditional landscapes. They’re contemplative studies of surfaces shaped by time and ecological cooperation, an invitation to pause and notice what’s usually overlooked.