#2 The Silence You Can Hear

Some moments have a sound you don’t hear with your ears but feel with your entire being. The artwork DS21008 captures such a moment: a Sunday morning in Maastricht, where the river Maas reflects the city and the mist softens every sound. The silence is almost audible.

The painting was inspired by a photograph taken by Guy van Grinsven, a photographer who had the rare ability to capture both the grand and the subtle. His images tell stories, revealing not just what is visible but also what is felt.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Van Grinsven was in New York City, photographing the skyline as part of his ongoing work. Later that day, he had a scheduled meeting at the Twin Towers. But fate had other plans. As the world watched in shock, he turned his lens toward the unfolding tragedy, capturing moments of chaos and devastation that would become part of history. His images of 9/11 are haunting - testimonies to a day when the sound of a city changed forever.

In Maastricht, he found something completely different. In the quiet of a misty morning, his camera framed a moment of peace, symmetry, and stillness. A city reflected in water, softened by fog, almost dissolving into silence. That contrast - between noise and quiet, between catastrophe and serenity - makes this image, and the painting it inspired, even more powerful.

Every city has its own sound. In New York, sirens blend with voices and traffic. In Amsterdam, trams and tourists fill the streets. But on that Sunday morning in Maastricht, there was something else: a silence that wasn’t empty but full.

Hearing is more than just sound. It’s how we resonate with our surroundings, how acoustics shape our perception, how silence can be an experience rather than an absence. For those with hearing loss, this awareness is even more profound.

That idea is embedded in the very fabric of this painting. DS21008 was created on acoustically absorbent canvas, designed not just to be seen but also to interact with sound. The way it is painted preserves the artistic style I aim to express while ensuring that the acoustic absorption remains at its maximum. It is a piece that visually embodies silence while also physically influencing the sound environment in which it is placed.

The artwork has found a home with a family whose daughter has hearing loss and uses hearing aids. For them, sound is never taken for granted. They understand how deeply sound shapes our experience of the world and how the acoustics of a space can make the difference between understanding and missing out. That’s why they have carefully considered the acoustics in their home, ensuring their daughter can hear and comprehend her surroundings as clearly as possible.

Many people don’t realize that we don’t just hear with our ears - we hear with our brains, with our whole being. Sound is not a given; it is a force that connects us to others, to our environment, to our memories. And sometimes, as in this painting, it is silence that makes that force truly tangible.

As Mark Rothko once said:

“The artist invites the spectator to take a journey within the realm of the canvas. Without taking the journey, the spectator has really missed the essential experience of the picture.”

This painting is such a journey. A journey through sound and silence, through what we hear and what moves us.

A Continuing Story

This artwork follows the previous cover painting, DS21007, which explored the unseen force of sound waves. Just as that piece revealed how sound shapes our experience, DS21008 shows how silence can do the same. Together, they form a dialogue - one about presence and absence, noise and quiet, movement and stillness. Each new artwork adds to this evolving narrative, Where Art meets Science and invites us to listen beyond what our ears can hear.