Some of the Phantom Fine-art prints / Hahnemühle Photorag 308gsm
About the project

When I was approached by the team at Boldhalle, my first reaction was fear. I had never done a solo show before. At the same time, it was something I had wanted to do for quite a while. Still, I kept wondering where to begin. My work lives across so many mediums, styles, and software tools. Finding a clear starting point felt overwhelming.
While diving back into my own work, the answer slowly became clear. It was a bold idea, and I knew many people might not fully understand it. But I only had one shot, and I believed in it deeply.
The exhibition is focused on one thing only: taste.
In a time where modern technologies keep advancing, the idea of artistic identity feels more fragile than ever. Skills can be copied, replicated, and even automated. Not only by ourselves, but by others as well. As skills become easier to imitate, taste is the one thing that cannot be replicated.
This exhibition is about taste, not skill. Our technical abilities will eventually be surpassed, but our vision and lived experiences cannot be replaced. We are shaped by the paths we have walked, the years we have spent learning, the beauty we have seen, and the memories we carry. These are things machines will never truly have access to.
Taste has always been fundamental to being an artist. Skills can be taught, practiced, and repeated. Taste goes far beyond that. It is built over time, through curiosity, mistakes, influences, and personal decisions. It defines how we see and choose.

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Kleur is a celebration of Rik’s taste in color in its purest form. The abstract, dreamy compositions are not demonstrations of technical skill, but expressions of personal decision-making. They show how artists can remain relevant by trusting their taste an
THE ART
Light bends
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Photography inspired gradients

While bringing my gradients into artificial intellegince I always tend to approach things like AI is a new dimension or world. I don't want AI to be an image creator, I want AI to be a new reality, a whole world brought to life by my colours and taste.

I want to be a photographer in my own ideal world and approach my craft not like a designer, but as a photographer instead. There were tons of interesting outputs when starting to work on AI vs my gradients that I decided to let some of these inspire this exhibition of mine.
Some of the examples of low resolution AI generated outputs that fueled the idea to make a basic gradient appear like it's captured like a random moment in time, not made intentionally
The outcome

Serenity 841mm x 1189mm 

Lucid 841 x 1189 mm 

Hyper 841 x 1189mm 

Frames
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An hommage to my best (ex) friend

Being a native digital artist, it felt impossible to bring this exhibition to life without honoring the screen. The screen gave me everything. It shaped my work, my process, and ultimately brought me to where I am today. Even though I am currently trying to distance myself from it, I cannot deny that none of this would exist without it.
That is why I chose to work with immersive, ultra-wide prints, fully embracing screen ratios. Both pieces are carefully crafted to translate the endless days and nights spent behind a display, fully focused and determined to make a life as a creator. This resulted in bold color spectrums that were a real challenge to print, especially where deep tones sit closely next to each other.
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Printed in screen ratio 160 x 90 cm

Frame 124, 1600 x 900 mm

Frame 369, 1600 x 900mm

Horizons
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Linear gradients fueled by mother nature.
Nothing fuels me more than nature and the palettes she creates. The moments she offers feel almost unreal, especially during golden hour. What amazes me is not just the colors themselves, but the fact that they are never the same twice. Every sunrise and sunset brings a different palette, quietly transforming the world around us. In those moments, everything feels slightly surreal, as if you are stepping into a new world for a brief moment.
Tunnels
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Immersive portraits

This series explores depth through color alone, pushing gradients toward something spatial and immersive. By shaping the spectrum into an eye-like tunnel, the work questions how focus is created and how color can guide vision without relying on form.
A darker core anchors the composition and pulls the gaze inward, while softer and more neutral edges allow the transition to feel natural and inevitable. Printed at A1 size, the works exist as a series of four and continue the exploration of the human eye as both structure and experience.

High Glow 584 x 841 mm

Iris 584 x 841 mm

Fauna 584 x 841 mm

Focus 584 x 841 mm

Phantom Outputs
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A journey into AI and how a taste can be applied while remain recognized as yours.


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Probably the thing that fueled the exhibition most is the matter of AI and how the future of "US" digital creators will turn out to be. There is so much frustration, so much fear, so many artists are thinking it's over for them.

But is that true? Are our skills truly defining who we are or are vision and taste actually way more superior to that? Ain't this another moment in time that could cause big shifts, but not only for the worst but also for the best?

Shouldn't we focus on more than just a couple of technical tricks that define us who we are. Since technical tricks are there to be copied by others anyways, once succesfull at least.

I feel the artists that are most succesfull are either the luckiest where one specific trick resonates with the moment of time we're in and becomes a trend. OR the artists that remain curious over time and aren't willing to settle.

For that last group I think its a very interesting time. Taste, vision. We can do so much more if we create this world purely based on our taste, almost like an experience.

That's what I've done with the Phantom part of this exhibition. The Phantom part is purely focussed on AI outputs where I spent months and months on trying and testing to see what works. Given all AI tools really butcher gradients with multiple colors into trippy rainbow colours once you train them.

This isn't me saying AI is the way, or AI is good, but this is me exploring a new medium and a new way to share my vision and taste.
The images selected out of the over 30.000 outputs are purely focused on surprising, wow, moments with a nice sense of variety.

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( fun fact, the printer called me thinking I submitted a wrong piece when they saw the portrait)
Deformed 
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Faded memories
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What happens when a composition is built using only color, and nothing else? What does it become?
Almost like macro shots of things that do not exist. Irises, textures, bends of light, lens burns.
What are we actually looking at? Is it just color, or is there something more hiding inside it?
Gradient Cloth
A small extra touch with a huge impact to break up the space and make it more of an experience.
THE EXHIBITION IN BRNO ( CZ )


Presenting a full body of work was a completely different experience for me. Instead of sharing a single image on a social feed, everything needed to connect. The work had to function as a whole, stay engaging, and revolve around one clear idea, while still allowing space to breathe and be experienced slowly.
I was incredibly grateful for the people in Brno, Czechia, who believed in me and my vision and invited me to exhibit at their beautiful venue, Boldhalle. The space is a raw industrial location in the second largest city of the country, where the history of the building is still very present. You can feel the past through the textures, eroded walls, and oddly placed power sockets scattered throughout the space.
That environment played a big role in choosing a more minimal body of work. I wanted the pieces to blend naturally with the industrial character of the building and create a balanced contrast rather than compete with it.
The opening night of the exhibition coincided with the opening of the BRNO Bold design conference, where international industry leaders shared their craft and inspiration with students and professionals alike. This year’s speakers included voices from Volvo, Studio Dumbar, Zetafonts, and many others.
The exhibition ran for two months and will return once the renovation of the new gallery space is completed.
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Exhibition details.

Location: Boldhalle, Brno.
Artist: Rik Oostenbroek
Curator: Jana bernkopf.
Partners: Brno Bold & Bloomfield.
Dates: 17-11-2025 / 05-01-2026
Printing: Re-Art fine art printing, Almere
Web: https://boldhalle.cz/collections/all