Eternal Sunshine is a computer-generated world in which an endless sunset unfolds above a digital sea. The sun remains suspended just above the horizon, forever caught in the moment between day and night, while everything around it slowly changes.

Weather drifts by, the wind rises, and the waves continuously shift in form. A computer system determines in real time how the sky will behave in the coming minutes, hours, days, and weeks. Although the work uses techniques familiar from first-person shooter games, it offers no interaction. The viewer is bound to watching.

The work originated from my family’s annual weekends by the sea. Since my father’s death in 2012, we have returned to the coast each year around the anniversary of his passing in September. We rent a small house on the beach, eat together, and watch as the sun slowly sinks into the sea. During those moments, I often found myself thinking: if only this could last forever.

Much of my work explores the experience of time and originates in moments of connection. Eternal Sunshine engages with the desire to suspend time; to make a fleeting moment infinite.

Symbolically, the sky always moves toward the viewer, the sun remains still, and the waves move away: future, present, and past united in a single image. What approaches us, what stays, and what we lose.

The work invites stillness and reflection, an awareness of what passes and yet continues to exist. It addresses the paradox of loss: something or someone is gone, yet remains present in another form.

Eternal Sunshine is part of the De Groen Collection and the art collection of Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem, where it is permanently on view and has become one of the most beloved works among staff, patients, and visitors.