In the White Cube of Het HEM, Ossip's works of art float like tranquil angels above a soft bed of sand. Detached from their source and caught in a cosmic void. They express the human desire to be disconnected from social and psychological conditions and conventions; a feeling of freedom that can be both ecstatic and terrifying. Is it a horror vacui that represents the fear and impossibility of emptiness or a mare tranquillitatis, the sea of peace that offers a safe haven?

Intuition is an important part of the artistic practice of Ossip (1952, the Netherlands). His work is based on portrait photographs that he collects from books, newspapers and magazines. They are casual images of human figures, whose postures and poses are reminiscent of the images from old technical and medical manuals. The yellowed photographs exude a retro feeling, from the end of the nineteenth or the beginning of the twentieth century — a time that we still call modern because it was characterised by enormous technological progress, which, in addition to optimism, caused confusion, alienation and unrest. In a way, this alienation can also be recognised in the collages of Ossip. By adding textile, (steel) wire, tulle or cardboard, he gives the figures in the photographs tentacles and deformities. They want to step out of their frames and make a connection with the world around them. As if they were plants that want to take root, devices whose plugs have been pulled out of the socket, or parasites looking for a host.