What is reality? How can it be that one person experiences and perceives reality differently to another? These questions inspired Dutch artist Lotta de Beus (1974) to create The Great Escape (2013–14). Museum MORE presents a selection of three paintings in acrylics and two charcoal drawings.

Dreamlike quality
The Great Escape has a dreamlike quality, which is manifested in both the images and the materials used. The artist uses elements from the visible reality to tempt the viewer to step into her fictional world. Once inside, the depictions are suddenly more difficult to comprehend, and they instead raise questions. What is it that we are looking at?
De Beus staged every aspect of her scenes. She first made costumes and masks, in which friends subsequently performed at carefully selected locations. The artist even recorded an 8mm film of this spectacle. These moving images, as well as the photographs taken during these sessions, served as source material for the ultimate artworks. With this elaborate approach, De Beus created a certain distance from her own reality. The ‘filtered’ or alienating reality offers the viewer sufficient freedom for their own interpretation.
From the series The Great Escape (2013-2014)
Made with the support of the Mondriaan Fund, VoordeKunst and the AFK (Amsterdam Fund for the Arts)
