For the majority of us, there exists a strict division between our personal pursuits and what we choose to do in order to pay the rent. These parallel realities are for the most part tragically irreconcilable. Although at times they occupy the same space, the two worlds we inhabit are separated by the unforgiving modalities of late capitalism. On one side is the daily grind – a life filled to the brim with bitter cups of office coffee, stagnant deoxygenated cubicle air, end- less hours of nothingness (the internet), and the slavish requirement to CC every node of the social matrix. On the other exists a life populated with everything imaginable. Inspiration, love, excitement, debauchery, sex, cham- pagne, creativity, liberation – and hopefully passion, always. Only in the sparse moments where we can steal away to this brighter side of our double lives are we able to realize our potential as living, breathing, thinking individuals.

But for a lucky, privileged few, this oppressive dichotomy does not exist. Maurice Scheltens is one of those few. Since graduating in 1995 from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts at The Hague, this popular but resolutely inventive Dutch still-life photographer has deftly navigated the an- tipodes of art and commerce with a unilateral approach to each one of his striking compositions. Working with much-coveted clients like Fantastic Man, Uniqlo, Adidas, Colette, and Wallpaper (just to name a few), as well as creating personal works that have dis- played in places as disparate as the Arnhem Fashion Biennale, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and the Seoul Art Center Design Museum, Scheltens presents to us a vision of objects imbued with a playful sincerity typically reserved for the living.

His work ranges from delicate arrangements of designer labels to superficially haphazard art pieces that effortlessly deconstruct our relationship with the everyday. In Scheltens’ world of spinning lamps and disappearing oranges, the materials that occupy his compositions betray their inherent artifice with a blank honesty that almost makes the photographs realer than what they represent. Staring at his imagery brings to mind a line of philosophical discourse that was always too convoluted for me to grasp with my eyes wide open.

I’m reminded mostly of the words of Jean Baudrillard, the great French post-structuralist: “This is how illusion operates: it restores to us beings and objects in the form they intrinsically take when changed by their absence, their disappearance. Vanished, but transparent to their own disappearance, whether this en- sues from their origin or their end. It is in this sense that they deceive us, but are faithful to themselves, and this is why you have to be faithful to them, for it is in their detail, in their exact figuration that objects are illusory, that reality is illusory.”

It is 3 a.m., and I’m sitting alone at my desk, waiting for Scheltens’ call. Working out of his studio in Amsterdam, he’s nine hours ahead of my studio in Vancouver, where the rain is tempting my eyelids with a soft drum loop pattering against the window. As always, my desk is cluttered with the detritus of my cultural idiolect: crumpled receipts, emptied Americanos, stacks of magazines, a half-eaten doughnut, a bottle of vodka, long-forgotten photo negatives, and so on.

As I wait for my phone to ring I’m soaking up one of Scheltens’ trademark pieces – flower cutouts surrounded by paper butterflies. The 2D effigies, ar- ranged with a spooky elegance and shot against a background of darkness, are beautiful, but why? The subtle interplay between the second and third dimensions is undeniably oblique, but the impression of a freshly cut bouquet remains as vivid as the real.

I check the weather; it’s raining in Amsterdam as well. I imagine all those smartly dressed cyclists balancing their umbrellas as they ride past the city’s canals… and then my Final Fantasy ringtone brings me back to my desk. It’s Scheltens; he’s rushing down a flight of stairs. We chat for a bit about his influences and inspirations: Man Ray, the Eames gal- lery, and graphic design in general. I’m impressed by how little difference there is between his personal, editorial, and commissioned work.

“The approach is very much the same, and I try to be as personal as possible,” he says. “The objects become like a wallpaper; it’s all just graphic material, it’s not about Gucci or Dior. I like fashion, but I always take a side-route and show it from a fresh angle.” Indeed, while most photographers choose to fetishize brands and exalt them to the gods of consumerism, Scheltens treats the likes of Hermès and Sony with the same measured delicacy as a crumpled pack of cigarettes or a flat- tened paper octopus. Scheltens never lets go of that uneasy feeling achieved by taking objects out of their natural habitats and placing them into new, possibly uncomfortable environs.

Scheltens explains how he tends to work in stylistic phases: he might get an idea while working on an editorial or commercial assignment, and within the borders of his client’s interests, he will refine the idea until perfected, then expand upon the theme within his personal work. “It’s all about the construc- tion – what you see is not what it is,” he says, touching on the dreamlike presence many of his objects convey. “Freedom is very important, and I’m trying to see how far I can go within each composition.”

Much like the graphic design methodology from which Scheltens gains so much inspiration, he works layer by layer, with a strong focus on contrasting the dimensions of texture against the photographic medium. In this sense, his girlfriend Liesbeth Abbenes is an ideal studiomate. Abbenes crafts wall tapestries that depict graphic images. With similar styles, the two have col- laborated on a number of projects and have been able to achieve a rare synergy between their respective mediums.

Scheltens and I keep chatting a while longer, touching on what it’s like to live and work outside the established art-photo circuit of New York-London-Paris. He says he’s happy where he is and is currently working on renovating his home – an elabo- rate task for a man who spends his days shifting millimetres to aesthetic perfection. After exchanging a good day and good night, I let my microwave-warm laptop take a nap and switch off my lamp. Amsterdam is still bustling through its day on the other side of the planet – artists, fashionistas, beggars, and baristas – while the items on my desk have all but disappeared.

[originally printed in The Block Magazine]