Hi, my name is Isabel van de Stadt and I am a visual artist and graphic designer based in Arnhem. I work across photography, kinetic work, (light) sculpture, and visual communication. Through a hands-on process, I explore themes such as visual perception, light, physics, movement, and materiality. I am especially interested in image-capturing and image-displaying technologies, and how their evolution shapes the way we see and experience our surroundings. 

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or want to say hello! I’m open to commissions and collaborations.

isabelvdstadt@gmail.com
@isabelvandestadt




Om Gezien Te Worden Met Blote OgenKinetic light sculptures, 2026

Om Gezien Te Worden Met Blote Ogen is a series of kinetic light sculptures. The inside of a lightbulb is being revealed through projection; a ceiling lamp becomes a holder for polarised light; a zoetrope inspired machine displays slowly moving light reflections; and colour filters overlap on a circular screen. Together, the works form an ode to light and the ways in which we perceive it. Inspired by early image-capturing and image-displaying technologies, the works feature handmade constructions and practical effects.

In response to a world increasingly dominated by digital screens, these light sculptures offer a slower, more tangible experience with light. While digital media enables us to witness more of the world than ever before, we simultaneously spend less time observing the world directly with our own eyes. This series of works serves as an invitation to slow down and (re)focus our attention on the physical world around us.

Graduation project, presented during the ArtEZ Finals 2026 (Graphic Design Arnhem). I am honoured to be one of the two recipients of the Sieger White Young Talent Award 2026.





The Ceiling is on the Floor
Photo series, 2023

Inspired by magical realism and fascinated by weightlessness, I made images that defy gravity. Using various practical effects—like rotating photos and hanging objects with transparent thread—I crafted a world where gravity behaves strangely and it is sometimes unclear what is the ceiling and what is the floor.





Cosmic Vertigo
Book, 2024

This book features two datasets from the NASA Exoplanet Archive, paired with poems from ‘Life on Mars’, a poetry collection from Tracy K. Smith, whose father worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. Black pages and white pages alternate throughout the book. The white pages contain a dataset of the 5859 exoplanets discovered to date. The black pages contain a dataset of false positive probabilities from the Kepler space telescope. I added these black pages with false positives to hint at the limits of knowledge and perception; while we expect there to be billions of planetary systems, we can only observe a fraction of what exists in outer space.



paper sculptures, ± 1m3

Cartography of Crowns
Paper sculptures + publication, 2024

Visual exploration of the crown—a part of the body we usually don’t really look at. I photographed the top of people their heads and transformed the photos into new images and objects; transforming them into something unfamiliar and slightly absurd. 







1. 3D model
2. 3D print
3. plaster mold
4. clay tile

Ceramic Poster
2024

A poster is often a temporary object, only functional for a certain period of time. Clay objects on the other hand, last for a long time once they are baked. The aim of the ceramic poster is to eternalise fleeting things. 
I collected flyers from the flyerstand at ArtEZ Arnhem, cut out pieces and reconstructed them into an A3-sized collage poster. The flyers reflect what is happening around a specific place (Arnhem, the Netherlands), at a specific time (year 2024). Therefore, this Ceramic poster serves as a time-capsule, capturing and conserving the here and now.

Experiments


diameter projection: ± 1 meter

Regencirkel
Light projection, 2025




Somewhere in Between
Photo series, 2025







Almost Flat
Projection mapping installation, 2024

The simple effect of a light projection morphing as it moves over spatial objects intrigues me. So I created a projection mapping installation that captures this phenomenon and explores perception of depth. 




Dream Psychology
Book, 2023

Redesign of the book Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners (1920), written by Sigmund Freud. I took the partly logical and partly illogical nature of dreams as a starting point and translated this into the design of the book by balancing between a readable novel-like book design and a more experimental book design. I distorted the shape of the text by placing cloud-like shapes through the text. Next to that, the page numbers are repositioned slightly on every page, creating a faded effect as they are printed on see through paper. And lastly, the chapter dividers are pop-up pages illustrating abstract dreamscapes.




Pink and Green Moiré pattern
Wall piece, 2023

Fascinated by moiré patterns I decided to create one myself. After various printed experiments with different designs and dimensions, I decided to stretch the work into a long strip (30x210 cm) meant to hang in a hallway, so that viewers can watch the ‘live animation’ as they walk by.