Roy Villevoye (1960, Maastricht) had a successful career as a painter until, at the end of the 1980's, he went in search of a new artistic direction. He found inspiration in his travels beyond Europe, especially in Papua, a former Dutch colony. His encounters with the Asmat people led to new works in which the symbolic meaning of colour is an important theme. He initially processed these new experiences into paintings, but gradually Villevoye sought other media to give form to his research into cultural codification and identity. Colour is also an important element in the large panoramic photographic work 'Kó (Showing Primary Colours in Kombai)' from 1995, in which industrial colours loom up in a tropical rainforest.