The Wild Within is a series of lens-based artworks by Dutch-Canadian artist Ryan Koopmans and Swedish artist Alice Wexell that explores the evolving relationship between nature and architecture.

The body of work reimagines historic, unique, and often abandoned spaces through themes of rebirth transformation, and renewal.

Blending photography with three-dimensional digital sculpting, the artists breathe new life into architectural sites, envisioning them as places where nature gently reclaims the built environment.

Overgrown vegetation winds through ornate halls, light drifts across aging surfaces, and each scene becomes a meditation on the passage of time. The work creates a suspension of disbelief, drawing viewers into a world that feels both tangible and imagined.

Each artwork takes the artists many months to create, shaped by meticulous attention to detail and a deep fascination with geometry, symmetry, and the intricate patterns found in both nature and architectural design. These pieces demand substantial resources and technical precision, resulting in artworks that are highly sought after by collectors and institutions worldwide.

A recurring motif is the flower, a symbol of life’s fleeting cycle from seed to bloom to decay. In the physical world, flowers embody impermanence; in these artworks, they are preserved, their transience prolonged to infinity.

The artwork is informed by the artists’ global travels and by their process of creating virtual foliage in their Swedish studio, shaped by seasonal extremes. Long, dark winters contrast with luminous summers culminating in midsummer rituals of flowers, greenery, and light that inspire the project’s meditation on cycles of life and renewal.

When stepping into the spaces they photograph, from the cracked walls of a forgotten sanatorium to the intricate carvings of a grand palace, a sense of curiosity arises about the lives once contained within. Who conceived these structures? Who lived here? What conversations filled these rooms, and what memories linger in their walls? These same questions guide the artists’ creative process, transforming each work into a site of reflection, history, and memory.

Spanning Azerbaijani spas, Italian palaces, Mexican estates, Lebanese villas, and Soviet-era sanatoria, Koopmans and Wexell capture culturally significant sites suspended between history and transformation.

On location, they photograph and scan interiors; in the studio, they digitally sculpt foliage, adjust lighting, and add subtle motion, reviving stillness with imagined growth and vitality.

Conceptually, the project draws from the 17th and 18th century Capriccio tradition, when artists painted architecture overgrown with nature, merging archaeology and imagination. Koopmans and Wexell adopt a similar approach, blending documentary precision with invention to explore the tension between structure and wilderness, permanence and impermanence.

In The Wild Within, nature and architecture coexist in fragile balance.

The overgrowth is shown at a moment when both can equally shine, embodying nature’s quiet presence, softening, reviving, and ultimately reclaiming. In most cases, the buildings depicted have since deteriorated or been demolished, making the artworks a preservation of memory as well as an imaginative reconstruction.

The Wild Within exists as both still images and seamlessly looping videos, offering immersive experiences where time feels suspended.

Works by Koopmans and Wexell are held in some of the most significant private and institutional art collections worldwide. They form part of the permanent collection of the Francisco Carolinum Museum in Linz, Austria, and the Swedish Ministry of Culture Permanent Collection, and have been exhibited at leading cultural institutions and events including Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, the 2022 Venice Art Biennale, Milan Design Weeks, Global Art Fairs, Museum of the Future, and Prague Castle in the Czech Republic. Additional partnerships have taken place at Le Bristol Paris, the Jane Goodall Institute at the Cannes Film Festival, UNICEF art galas, and through the world’s foremost auction houses Christie’s and Sotheby’s.