For the 50th anniversary of Ruigoord, Maarten van der Horst created two special benches for visitors to sit and enjoy their surroundings. An homage to the village that has inspired and seen him flourish as an artist. The bench, like his collages, is a combination of materials. With gable stones from the Amsterdam municipal archives, bricks and a roving stone that he made land and balance here. Van der Horst created a resting place for the wandering soul, urban nomad and dreamy reveller.

Maarten (Mrtn) van der Horst (1961) is an autodidact artist. He started painting in 1980, but the sterile white of canvas offered little inspiration. He turned to assemblages, which he calls ‘junk-art’. In 1997, he developed the neo-animism style: assemblages of decayed and natural materials such as wood, rusty iron, stone and bones. He is inspired by the shape and nature of the recovered material. The sculptures remain recognisable as trees, planks or stone, but also depict elements from the animal or human world. For Van der Horst, the creative process is a ritual. In 2008, he started making collages, both digital and analogue. In addition, van der Horst is co-founder of the analogue collage collective Cut & Paste Art (2010).