Ruud van Empel (Breda, 1958) is a Dutch photographer and visual artist known for large-scale digital compositions built from photographs he takes himself and assembles on the computer. His work sits between photography and the creation of autonomous images, and it has earned wide international recognition.
He studied at the St Joost Academy of Art in Breda during the 1970s and moved to Amsterdam in the late 1980s to pursue his career as an artist. His first photographic series included The Office (1995), Study for Women and Study in Green. Until the mid-1990s he worked with analogue photomontage, then turned to computer-based image processing, a shift that defined his method.
His style pairs near-flawless technical finish with an unsettling air. The images look plausible yet depict no real place. His international breakthrough came with the series World, Moon and Venus, begun in 2005, inspired by photographs taken by his father and set in idyllic landscapes populated by neatly dressed children. Later work includes the Theatre, Sunday and Still Life series.
His legacy lies in developing a personal photographic language that engages with painting and cinema without imitating them, and in showing that constructed photography can carry the autonomy of an independent image.