All Eyes

Here, like a being in a fairytale, the figure of a boy lies on his back, encrusted with bright blue crystal. An ancient lump of rock from the eastern Atlantic lies on his breast like a dead weight. This mystical sculpture by the artist Roger Hiorns (1975, United Kingdom) makes an appeal to our imagination, as if the boy has solidified into a superhuman form to which we have no access.

In 2008 Roger Hiorns became known as an artist through his installation Seizure, for which he filled an empty flat in London with a mixture of water and copper sulphate. Several weeks later when the mixture was pumped away, a strange and wonderful blue crystal grotto was revealed, created by the copper sulphate deposits.  Like a modern alchemist, Hiorns transforms and explores objects and materials in the broadest sense.

Hiorns graduated from Goldsmiths College in London in 1996. He has had solo exhibitions at venues including the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, Annet Gelink Gallery in Amsterdam, Rudolfinum Gallery in Prague, Corvi-Mora in London and Luhring Augustine in New York. His work is held in numerous public and private collections.

This quadriptych by Pieter Paul Pothoven (1981, Netherlands) shows photographic images of wafer-thin sections of lapis lazuli, a precious blue mineral from the far-off mine of Sar-i-Sang in North Afghanistan. The title Laguard refers to Koh-e-Laguard (The Blue Mountain), the mine where the lapis lazuli is extracted. In European painting lapis lazuli was used as raw material for the color ultramarine, a rare and accordingly precious pigment.

Pieter Paul Pothoven uses historical locations, materials and objects in order to explore their relationship to western visual culture. His works are a homage to the origin of pigments used in western visual arts. They also feature in one of the artist's research projects into the cultural, political and representative qualities associated with lapis lazuli.

Pothoven graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, the Universität der Kunst, Berlin, and Parsons The New School for Design, New York. His work has been exhibited at various locations, including FOAM, Amsterdam and The Kitchen, New York. It is held in public and private collections, such as the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden.

In 1995 Jan Andriesse (1950-2021, Indonesia) painted his first rainbow painting. Rainbow, from 2004, was specially commissioned by the AkzoNobel Art Foundation. We see one of the most intangible natural phenomena, caused by the shifting play of colour and light reflected in raindrops - the refracted light of the rainbow. The painting is constructed from many meticulously applied thin layers of paint in delicate tints that merge almost imperceptibly. Like Andriesse's other rainbow paintings, Rainbow is best seen by daylight or dusk: the time at which dark becomes light, or light becomes dark, and colour respectively emerges or vanishes. Only then does the painting come into its own and the sensation of light and colour is experienced as matter.

The work of Andriesse is about light, space and the reflection of light on water. He was intensely absorbed by many physical phenomena and found unfailing inspiration in the view over the water from his houseboat studio.

Andriesse graduated from the Vrije Academie in The Hague and the Ateliers '63 in Amsterdam. From the 1990s he enjoyed international fame with his man-sized rainbow paintings. His work is on show at various international institutes, including Museum Kurhaus Kleef in Germany and Museum De Pont in Tilburg.

Prudencio Irazábal (1954, Spain) is known for his highly defined technique of abstract acrylic painting, characterized by a vast number of translucent layers added onto each other, finished by a polished mirror-like surface. The relation between surface and depth is vital for the understanding of his abstract images. Color, mediated by the transit of light through paper-thin layers, constitutes a unique perceptual experience. This merging of translucent layers shapes the incoming light but allows the eye to traverse through to the white canvas.

Prudencio Irazábal studied Fine Arts in Sevilla and Barcelona and completed his studies at Columbia University, New York. The artist lived in New York for twenty years but moved back to Spain in 2008. He has exhibited worldwide, and his work is held in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres, and many others.

This quadriptych by Anish Kapoor (1954, India) comprises 4 color etchings. Deep yellow ochre, orange, pure white and brick red. The images resemble powdered pigment that has been gently blown apart and then immediately framed. Clouds and little heaps of pigment in varying concentrations of color. The pigment embodies a conflict that Kapoor wishes to express: the sensuous nature of material and color and the impossibility of touching the image without disrupting it.

The use of loose pigments is characteristic of Kapoor's work. In India little heaps of pigment are sold in temples for cosmetic and ritual use. Kapoor uses the pigments in order to tone down or blur the archetypical forms in his work.

One of the most important modern artists, Anish Kapoor has exhibited throughout the world in prominent art institutions such as the Guggenheim, Haus der Kunst in Germany, Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and Centre Pompidou in France. Awards he has won include the Turner Prize and the Premio 2000. His work is included in numerous prominent art collections.

This quadriptych by Anish Kapoor (1954, India) comprises 4 color etchings. Deep yellow ochre, orange, pure white and brick red. The images resemble powdered pigment that has been gently blown apart and then immediately framed. Clouds and little heaps of pigment in varying concentrations of color. The pigment embodies a conflict that Kapoor wishes to express: the sensuous nature of material and color and the impossibility of touching the image without disrupting it.

The use of loose pigments is characteristic of Kapoor's work. In India little heaps of pigment are sold in temples for cosmetic and ritual use. Kapoor uses the pigments in order to tone down or blur the archetypical forms in his work.

One of the most important modern artists, Anish Kapoor has exhibited throughout the world in prominent art institutions such as the Guggenheim, Haus der Kunst in Germany, Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and Centre Pompidou in France. Awards he has won include the Turner Prize and the Premio 2000. His work is included in numerous prominent art collections.

This quadriptych by Anish Kapoor (1954, India) comprises 4 color etchings. Deep yellow ochre, orange, pure white and brick red. The images resemble powdered pigment that has been gently blown apart and then immediately framed. Clouds and little heaps of pigment in varying concentrations of color. The pigment embodies a conflict that Kapoor wishes to express: the sensuous nature of material and color and the impossibility of touching the image without disrupting it.

The use of loose pigments is characteristic of Kapoor's work. In India little heaps of pigment are sold in temples for cosmetic and ritual use. Kapoor uses the pigments in order to tone down or blur the archetypical forms in his work.

One of the most important modern artists, Anish Kapoor has exhibited throughout the world in prominent art institutions such as the Guggenheim, Haus der Kunst in Germany, Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and Centre Pompidou in France. Awards he has won include the Turner Prize and the Premio 2000. His work is included in numerous prominent art collections.

This quadriptych by Anish Kapoor (1954, India) comprises 4 color etchings. Deep yellow ochre, orange, pure white and brick red. The images resemble powdered pigment that has been gently blown apart and then immediately framed. Clouds and little heaps of pigment in varying concentrations of color. The pigment embodies a conflict that Kapoor wishes to express: the sensuous nature of material and color and the impossibility of touching the image without disrupting it.

The use of loose pigments is characteristic of Kapoor's work. In India little heaps of pigment are sold in temples for cosmetic and ritual use. Kapoor uses the pigments in order to tone down or blur the archetypical forms in his work.

One of the most important modern artists, Anish Kapoor has exhibited throughout the world in prominent art institutions such as the Guggenheim, Haus der Kunst in Germany, Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and Centre Pompidou in France. Awards he has won include the Turner Prize and the Premio 2000. His work is included in numerous prominent art collections.

What is striking about T-4 by Alan Uglow, the last canvas he ever produced, is how precisely the patches of color are placed. The intensity of the color is the result of applying multiple layers of paint. They differ in thickness, and where they are contiguous, the transitions are very noticeable. Right at those seams, the fall of the light reveals even more subtle nuances.  Each plane has its own surface structure that minutely reveals the traces of a brush or roller (a different one each time), and the direction of stroke also varies. Not without reason has Alan Uglow been called the master of understatement.

The calculated lines, shapes and division of spaces on Uglow's abstract canvases are rooted in everyday reality. In the spirit of pop culture, he would take a football field, a flag or the layout of a job advertisement as the basis for works of his.

British-born Alan Uglow moved to New York in the late Sixties, where he moved in the circles of the Abstract Expressionists and the color field painters. He counted such leading artists and critics as Barnett Newman and Clement Greenberg among his friends. They had an impact on him, as did the abstract-geometric work of Piet Mondrian. From these various historical contexts, he struck out on a journey of his own. In his work, the focus shifted to the distribution of planes and to size; to texture and structure; organization and tension.

Krijn de Koning (1963, Netherlands) is well known for his temporary installations in museums, galleries and public spaces, in which the experience of the space is central. In addition, De Koning also makes smaller sculptures, such as the works from his series Tumbling Works. These are many-colored architectural arrangements that you can turn over onto any side.

Krijn de Koning is concerned with the question of how we experience architectural space. 'My work is always about looking, about how you draw attention to things. I work from the position that a space has a physical as well as a mental impact', says De Koning. His site-specific interventions are recognizable by their strong visual language of rectangular architectural forms and colored surfaces. His work can best be described as sculptural, but possesses the qualities of both painting and architecture.

De Koning studied at the Ateliers '63 in Haarlem and at the Institut des Hautes Études en Art Plastiques in Paris. His work features in various private and public collections including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the FNAC and FRACs in France. In 2007 De Koning won the Sikkens Prize for his installations in public spaces.

The abstract paintings of Steven Aalders (1959, Netherlands) which the AkzoNobel Art Foundation has collected from 1996, now amount to a modest oeuvre. Are these works however as abstract as they seem at first glance? The titles that Aalders chooses suggest otherwise. Cardinal Points, for example, refers to the four compass directions. Two horizontal and two vertical bands of color are set against a warm grey background. The eye seeks the connections between the linear forms and their colors, but the composition ensures that the viewer goes astray and finds no resting point.

Steven Aalders is renowned for his meticulous abstract oil paintings in which traces of the modernism of Mondrian and America minimalism can be seen. Aided by sketches and watercolors, Aalders mixes his colors and very slowly, layer upon layer, brushes the oil paint onto the canvas. His art works are poetic, visual experiences of line and color.

Aalders studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, at Croydon College of Art in London and in the Ateliers in Haarlem. In 1986 Aalders was awarded the Koninklijke Prijs voor de Vrije Schilderkunst. His work is held in various private and public collections such as the Stedelijk Museum in  Amsterdam, the Caldic Collectie, ABN AMRO Kunstcollectie and Museum Kurhaus Kleve in Germany.

In the heart of the Art Space wing this self-portrait by Vera Gulikers (1991, Netherlands), The Model (Hush and Hurl) (2021) fills the place with color. The model adopts a classic pose, but her legs have turned into a playful doodle. The pastel colors call to mind cleaning cloths, and refer to an earlier series Poetsdoeken (dustcloths): paintings in which the artist takes a tongue-in-cheek look at typically 'feminine' occupations such as cleaning. The curling legs in this sculpture make short work of stereotyping. By merging stereotypes in her work Guliker creates 'an independent image, free of its photographer, producer, painter or fashion designer. With her curling legs the image symbolizes an independent, separate and spacious painter's region, which decides its own ideal within the art of painting.'

The work of Vera Gulikers is striking not only for its seductive palette, but also for its specific use of materials: a combination of ancient techniques such as tempera paint, with modern adaptations such as flock, which has been used to construct this sculpture.

Gulikers was resident at the Jan van Eyk Academie in Maastricht. Her work has been widely shown, and collected by private and public collections such as the Bonnefantenmuseum and SCHUNK Maastricht. Gulikers was awarded the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst in 2017 and the Buning Bronger Prijs in 2020.  

The hypnotic rhythm of the moving lines in the digital work of art Skypad (2016) by Tabor Robak (1986, United States) evokes echoes of Microsoft Windows screensavers from the 1990s. Robak generates his own computer images with programs such as Unity, After Effects, Photoshop and Cinema 4D, so creating a digital world with a beauty that the artist himself describes as 'desktop screensaver aesthetic'.

Robak uses digitally generated images with a dazzling palette. The shapes and lines in his work evolve in their own rhythm, ensuring that you never look at the same piece twice. Robak's digital 'paintings' are never finished and are based on the principle that technology is gradually learning how to paint, thus taking over the creative process.

Tabor Robak lives and works in New York. His work has been exhibited in venues including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Serpentine Galleries in London, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Palazzo delle Esponizioni in Rome, the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, and the Team Gallery in New York. His work is held in numerous public and private collections.

These life-size prints, Planta Rosada and Planta Azul (2019), by Claudia Martínez Garay (1983, Peru) portray native Peruvian plants. Garay drew the plants and enlarged them to billboard-sized spatial drawings. They form part of Garay's oeuvre, which can be seen as a growing visual archive of the history of her native land. Colonization in Peru brought about a great loss of knowledge and artifacts from indigenous cultures, such as the Inca civilization.

In space-filling installations that combine painting, graphics, sculpture and weaving, Martínez Garay examines how artifacts, cultural relics and propaganda color and distort our history. She breathes new life into fragments of Peruvian history, like these plants, in order to prolong the existence of what is threatened with destruction. Many of the symbols she uses refer to power and violence, and how they are maintained. But she also throws light on what we can learn from ancient wisdom.

Martínez Garay studied graphics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Peru, and was resident from 2016 to 2017 at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She took part in the 16th Istanbul Biennale and won the Emerging Artist Award of the Cisneros Fontanals  Art Foundation in Miami in 2019. The works of Martínez Garay are held in various prominent and private collections.

These life-size prints, Planta Rosada and Planta Azul (2019), by Claudia Martínez Garay (1983, Peru) portray native Peruvian plants. Garay drew the plants and enlarged them to billboard-sized spatial drawings. They form part of Garay's oeuvre, which can be seen as a growing visual archive of the history of her native land. Colonization in Peru brought about a great loss of knowledge and artifacts from indigenous cultures, such as the Inca civilization.

In space-filling installations that combine painting, graphics, sculpture and weaving, Martínez Garay examines how artifacts, cultural relics and propaganda color and distort our history. She breathes new life into fragments of Peruvian history, like these plants, in order to prolong the existence of what is threatened with destruction. Many of the symbols she uses refer to power and violence, and how they are maintained. But she also throws light on what we can learn from ancient wisdom.

Martínez Garay studied graphics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Peru, and was resident from 2016 to 2017 at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She took part in the 16th Istanbul Biennale and won the Emerging Artist Award of the Cisneros Fontanals  Art Foundation in Miami in 2019. The works of Martínez Garay are held in various prominent and private collections.

This tufted rug, entitled Sugta Pacha (2020) forms part of Claudia Martínez Garay's (1983, Peru) Pacha works. It is a visual collage of existing images, from propaganda posters, archeological archives, botanical illustrations and old books on Peruvian history. The term Pacha stands for time and space in the Andean language, and refers to the cycles of growth, flowering and decay in (human) nature and to politico-social themes such as revolution, change and adaptation.

The oeuvre of Martínez Garay comprises painting, sculpture, graphics, video, rugs and site-specific installations. By breathing new life into lost and forgotten stories in her work, MartÍnez Garay explores how colonialist frameworks still manage to exist. Many of the symbols she uses refer to power and violence, and how they are maintained. But she also throws light on what we can learn from ancient wisdom.

Martínez Garay studied graphics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Peru, and was resident from 2016 to 2017 at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She took part in the 16th Istanbul Biennale and in 2019 won the Emerging Artist Award of the Cisneros Fontanals  Art Foundation in Miami. The works of Martínez Garay are held in various prominent and private collections. 

Snæfell, a remote Icelandic mountain, is a magical and unique place. The kaleidoscopic skies above its peak and the constantly changing colors of the surrounding landscape make it a major and much photographed attraction. Skies over Snaefell, a light installation by Allard van Hoorn (1968, the Netherlands), represents these changing skies. A computer continuously trawling the Internet for images of Snæfell controls the installation’s iridescent globes in transient hues. The Internet images are indexed and software separates the skies from the mountain. Van Hoorn’s eerily work shows us the Internet-based abstract reality of the skies over Snæfell, which may be all that remains of it if our natural surroundings are not protected for posterity.

Skies over Snaefell came into being as a three-way collaboration between De Appel arts center, Amsterdam, the Mondriaan Fund and Van Hoorn.

Van Hoorn has exhibited nationally and internationally, including shows at Gasworks, London, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich and The Moore Space, Miami. His work is held in many important private and public collections.

A cleaning trolley made completely out of pottery. Lumpy, bumpy and brightly coloured with mop, bucket and a whole range of cleaning products. Fingerprints made during the creative process have been left deliberately visible in the finished sculpture - a silent witness to the presence of the maker. Schoonmaakerswaagen (2018) by Koos Buster (1992, Netherlands) is an extensive reworking of Mob Bucket (2016), an earlier work that was exhibited at the Frans Hals Museum. The artist calls the Schoonmaakerswaagen his 'graduation masterpiece - a monument to the cleaner'.

Koos Buster usually chooses ordinary ready-made factory products to elevate to eccentric life-size ceramic works of art. His work combines a mischievous sense of humur and exceptional craftsmanship in order, like Warhol and Duchamp before him, to make us wonder what raises art to art. By means of his sketches he builds up to a ceramic finale in which the messiness and innocence of those initial drawings must be preserved.

Buster studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited at various locations, including Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague, and the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem. His work is included in various public and private collections.

For the mural sculpture On Spam, Comment Spam #115 (2021) which was specially made for this jubilee exhibition, Niels Post (1972, Netherlands) searched through his spam filter for texts on love, loneliness and desire. He selected words and fragments that can be combined to form a new story. These short pieces of text are incorporated into his mural sculpture, forming a moving cloud of words that continually changes shape and color.

Everyday life is Niels Post’ (1972, the Netherlands) greatest source of inspiration. The last few years he has been drawing on the endless source of spam in his junk mailbox. Post gratefully uses the computer-generated texts that pop up - not addressed to anyone in particular - as material for his work. Isolated and executed as wall sculpture, space-filling installation or intervention in public space, the generic texts get the power of a secret message.

Post studied at the AKI Enschede and the San Francisco Art Institute. He gained recognition through his subtle interventions in the public space and extended his practice to the exhibition space. His work is part of various public and private collections. Together with Jeroen Bosch, Post founded the Artweblog Trendbeheer.

Specially for the twenty-fifth jubilee of the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Gijs Frieling (1966, Netherlands) painted the mural Common Background Refurbished (2021). It is an adaptation of Common Background, an earlier wall painting by him from 2018. This apocalyptic mural is an allegorical representation in which the protection of art is the central theme. Evening has fallen on the river. In the foreground tulips and different sorts of turtles can be see, the candles on their shells casting a soft radiance. Three jaggedly painted little devils claw their way upwards through the earth. On the river itself the ark of AkzoNobel glides by, laden with iconic works from the collection. The different techniques, works of art and artists come together to celebrate the 25-year jubilee of the Art Foundation: ANAF XXV.

Gijs Frieling is renowned for his lively, decorative and startling murals, which are inspired by folklore and religious motifs and imagery.

Frieling studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. In 1994 he was awarded the Koninklijke Subsidie voor Vrije Schilderkunst, in 1999 the Prix de Rome and in 2009 the Cobra Kunstprijs.

Magic Mirror (Blue) (2012) by Ann Veronica Janssens (1956, United Kingdom) consists of two glass plates with a layer of 'dichroïc' polyester film between them. This layer creates a filter that selectively allows light through, so that only a limited color spectrum is visible in every reflection. The effect is a constantly changing work that is activated by the movement of the viewer and the gradually changing light of the day.

Ann Veronica Janssens uses glass, sound, light and other intangible optical phenomena as medium. Her works seem very simple in nature at first, but create lively visual experiences. They make the viewer aware of the changeable and fleeting nature of individual perception.

The work of Ann Veronica Janssen is held in a variety of public and private collections, and has been exhibited throughout the world by renowned art institutions such as WIELS in Brussels, De Pont in Tilburg, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, and at the Biennales of Venice (1999) and Sydney (2012).

Louise Giovanelli (1993, United Kingdom) aims in her paintings to make time stand still, so that looking at her work feels almost meditative. In Wager (2020) Giovanelli has cropped two golden blouses in such a way that the viewer cannot see whether they are being worn, or hanging side by side in a wardrobe. The fabric evokes the glittering outfits of game show hosts.

This is typical of the work of Giovanelli. She chooses her subjects on the basis of formal qualities such as composition, colour and texture. What she paints therefore is not the most important thing. For her, the main thing is the texture and the patterns that she can conjure up with that. Giovanelli's early work is characterised by delicate, almost luminous paintings. By working with monochrome pigments applied in layers she succeeds in creating real painted light.

Giovanelli completed her postdoctoral studies at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main in 2020, after obtaining her Bachelor's Degree at the Manchester School of Art. Giovanelli's work can be seen in the collections of the British Government, Sarow Gallery, De Grundy Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, Warrington Museum and Art Gallery and various private collections.

This wall hanging by Patricia Kaersenhout (1966, Netherlands) forms part of the series Objects of Desire and is designed like a Chinese propaganda poster. In place of the usual communist leaders and members of the working class, Kaersenhout has portrayed exceptional black feminists who have fallen into oblivion: journalists, poets, scholars and activists with a Caribbean background who played an important part in the struggle against racism, poverty and inequality. Solange Fitte Duval (1921-2014), who is depicted on this wall hanging, was a pioneer in the field of women's emancipation and education on Martinique.

As a child of Surinamese parents Patricia Kaersenhout has developed an artistic direction in which she explores her Surinamese origins, in relation to the Western European culture in which she was brought up. Her work is political in nature and deals with subjects such as feminism, sexuality, racism, the African diaspora and the history of slavery.

Kaersenhout studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Her work has been frequently exhibited at, among others, Wilfried Lentz in Rotterdam, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Museum of Contemporary Diaspora Art in the US, Manifesta 12 and the Venice Biennale of 2017. Her work is held in various public and private collections, including the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

In this enigmatic work by Koen Vermeule (1965, Netherlands) five figures lie motionless on a marble floor. The title of the work, Tanz (2019), betrays however that it may be only the painting that has stilled the movement of these figures. Vermeule painted the work from a photograph that he made of a dance performance, to the compelling music of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, at the BODE museum in Berlin. Isolated and detached from its context, the image is penetrating and dramatic.

In his work Vermeule confronts the viewer with an image that is not unambiguous. He invites the thoughtful and open-minded viewer to reflect and arrive at his own interpretation of the painted scene. Much of Vermeule's work comes into being when, in observing the world, he is touched by something that disconcerts him. With camera in hand, he records the world around him; a view of the street, from the window, of a country road. Everything provides material for his paintings in which landscapes and human figures predominate.

Vermeule was awarded the Charlotte Köhlerprijs in 1994. His work is held in collections including those of the Centraal Museum Utrecht, Museum De Beyerd in Breda and the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam.

Vanitas (voor Gin) II (2009) is a still life that brings together apparently incompatible objects - heavy and light materials - in an acrobatic balancing pose. The work combines a ceramic balloon, salt crystal, a leather door stopper, a traditional crocheted bonnet from Zeeland and a cast bronze head on a book, decorated with vermicelli and macaroni. The objects refer to breath and food, and a desire for lightness; a desire to be able to rise above the earthly life to which we are tied as human beings.

A constant factor in the work of Gijs Assmann (1966, Netherlands) is the series of 'vanitas sculptures' which he has worked on since 1992. Each work in this series is dedicated to a friend or acquaintance, and can be regarded as a portrait of this person, made with the materials of a still life. The sculptures express the idea that everything is transitory, and form a solidified ode to the friend or acquaintance in question.

Assmann studied at the AKI in Enschede and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited frequently in renowned art institutions, such as the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, and is held in various private and public collections. In 2021 Assmann was the first to be awarded De Kei, the Keramiek prize.

A constant factor in the work of Gijs Assmann (1966, Netherlands) is the series of 'vanitas sculptures' which he has worked on since 1992. Each work in this series is dedicated to a friend or acquaintance, and can be regarded as a portrait of this person, made with the materials of a still life. The sculptures express the idea that everything is transitory, and form a solidified ode to the friend or acquaintance in question.

Assmann studied at the AKI in Enschede and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited frequently in renowned art institutions, such as the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, and is held in various private and public collections. In 2021 Assmann was the first to be awarded De Kei, the Keramiek prize.

The first impression made by Cover (2) is determined by the large brown-painted area covered with threads. It could represent a head of hair, but also a landscape. There is a lot to see on this canvas on which Michael Raedecker (1996, Netherlands) plays with paint, areas of color and unusual materials. His titles push his work in a particular direction, although it always has several layers of meaning. He likes to play with the possible interpretations of a work. Cover refers to a record cover of the hard rock band Kiss.

Michael Raedecker describes himself as an 'embroiderer'. With a background in the fashion world, he took up the paintbrush with the aim of uniting 'the slowness of needle and thread' with both the speed of a brushstroke and the history of the art of painting.

Raedecker studied at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and Goldsmiths College in the United Kingdom. In 1999 he was awarded the John Moores Prize for painting and in 2000 he was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize. His work has been much exhibited at locations such as the GEM in The Hague, the Sprengel Museum in Germany, Tate Britain in the United Kingdom and Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Italy.

The Voyagers (2019) forms part of the series The Inheritance (or Familiar Strangers). In her work Esiri Erheriene-Essi (1982, United Kingdom) compiles a painted image bank of everyday moments in the lives of people from the African diaspora, moments and stories that often go unnoticed. In this painting we see a family sitting in the gondola of a Ferris wheel, their feet dangling in the air. The people are strangers to the viewer, but the snapshot-like composition makes them feel familiar. What have these Voyagers experienced, what have they all seen?

Erheriene-Essi collects pictures, objects and documents with which she explores personal and shared memories. As source material for her paintings she uses photographs of people who emigrated to the West from Africa, Haiti and the Caribbean in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, in search of a better life.

Erherienne-Essi studied at the University of East London and was resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Her work is frequently exhibited and included in diverse public collections, such as the Fries Museum, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and in numerous private collections in the United States, Africa and Europe. In 2009 she was awarded the Koninklijke Prijs voor de Schilderkunst and in 2019 she was nominated for the Prix de Rome.

The title of this work by artist Ger van Elk (1941-2014, Netherlands), The Western Stylemasters (1991) is a clear reference to Rembrandt's famous group portrait De Staalmeesters of 1662. The visual parallels make the reference even clearer. The chiaroscuro and the enormous white collars and cuffs are reminiscent, in an almost stereotypical way, of 17th-century painting. The composition however is unmistakably of our time; the two human figures are not inspecting the woollen cloth, as in the work of Rembrandt, but regarding each other critically.

This is typical of Van Elk's work, which can be described as a game with the rules of art history. Van Elk, who studied art history himself, researched into the origin of visual conventions and endowed them with new content. He is also regarded as one of the pioneers of conceptual art. Van Elk experimented with various media and frequently worked with other artists.

Ger van Elk studied at the Instituut voor Toegepaste Kunsten in Amsterdam and the Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles. His work is represented in a wide range of institutions such as Fondazione Prada in Milan, Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

The face of this man in a suit is hidden from view by his extremely remarkable headgear: a Vlafliphoedje van Links (2019) (a Leftwing Custard Hat). A round sheet of paper is folded over the head, resembling the caps and bonnets of people in traditional national dress. Vanilla custard has been poured over the paper sheet and drips down the man's shoulders. On top of the cap the artist has constructed a tower of squeaky balls for dogs.

 Matthijs Geurds scrutinizes people and the social codes and rules of behavior that they impose on themselves. Tongue in cheek, he parodies and paraphrases social concepts in his work. This work is an element of his graduate presentation; a playful look at a future society struggling to its feet after an apocalyptic disaster. The project developed into a treasury of inimitable objects, which not only breathe history but also create a fresh new visual language. Geurds' work seems spatial and cursory at first. The registrations of these spatial works are a work of art in themselves.

Geurds graduated cum laude at the AKI Artez in Enschede, in the 3D, all-space and sculpture course. As one of the selected graduates his work was to be seen at the exhibition Best of Graduates 2019, organized by Galerie Ron Mandos.

This portrait of the philosopher Spinoza is typical of the work of Emo Verkerk (1955, Netherlands), whose oeuvre is dominated by portraits of artists, philosophers, writers and musicians whom he admires. In his famous work Ethics (1677), Spinoza sketches those who search for happiness with fame and prestige as starting points. These pitfalls also preoccupy Verkerk: 'Unlike a carpenter, as an artist you're tortured by the question of whether you've achieved anything. That's difficult, I think.'

Verkerk broke off his course in philosophy to study at the Ateliers '63 in Haarlem. While there, according to him, he never learned to draw from life or how to use paint. As a painter he can therefore be regarded as self-taught. Verkerk paints people in an unconventional and often humorous way. In his disarming and playful paintings he abandons portrait painting as we know it, and chooses to go his own way.

Verkerk's work has been exhibited many times, and is included in prominent collections such as the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Central Museum in Utrecht and the Marian Goodman Gallery in the US.

The neon light sculpture What If Women Ruled The World (2016) was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 1946 film classic Dr. Strangelove. In this film we see a select group of powerful white men coming together to consider a nuclear war and thus unilaterally decide the fate of humanity. With What If Women Ruled The World, Yael Bartana (1970, Israel) suggests a peaceful alternative.

Yael Bartana is known for her films, installations and photography. With her complex multimedia works she explores and examines the visual language used to propagate national and cultural identity. In this way she asks the viewer to think about the way in which countries and nations tell and preserve dominant stories.

Yael Bartana studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel. She went on to study at the School of Visual Arts, New York and the Rijksakademie of Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Her work is held in collections including those of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Van Abbemuseum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Tate Modern London and Museum of Modern Art New York.

In the work of Tang Zhigang (1959, China) everything is centered on the absurdity of the bureaucracy in institutional life. For twenty years Zhigang was a painter in the People's Liberation Army of the Communist Party in China. By portraying leaders from the communist era as toddlers gravely absorbed in a game, as here in Children in meeting (2004), and by shrinking the setting to child size, he displays his ironic view of the endless meetings within the military regime.

Zhigang worked for the political department and was responsible not only for the arrangement of conference rooms, for writing slogans and making photographs, but also for providing art education for children. While the adults were conferring, the children in his class were raising their hands. In Children in meeting Zhigang examines the similarities and differences between politicians and children. With children, immaturity is innocent, in adults it is calculating.

Zhigang has exhibited widely in Asia and beyond, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the ZKM Museum in Germany and doArt Gallery in China.

Like a pin-up, the crouching woman in this work by Charlotte Schleiffert (1967, Netherlands) looks provocatively over her shoulder at the viewer. Her body is covered in decoration reminiscent of the stars and stripes of the American flag. Schleiffert portrays her heroines as exotic figures such as pin-ups, hardrockers and warriors: imaginary figures, people she meets on the street, celebrities from TV, magazines and the internet.

The raw atmosphere of the drawings is due to Schleiffert's working method. Materials such as tempera, acrylic and oil paint, pencil and pastel are effortlessly combined. She often sits very close to her work while drawing, only seeing it as a whole when it hangs on the wall. Dripping paint, stains and footprints are the result of this approach. Charlotte Schleiffert places raw human emotion at the centre of her work, and paints humanity in all its aspects.

Schleiffert won the Prix de Rome in 1999 and the Jeanne Oosting Prize in 2017. She was artist in residence at the CEAC in China and Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany, and exhibited her work at both locations. Her work has also been exhibited at, among others, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, and the Haus der Kunst in Germany.

Homage to Marcel Duchamp: Aura (Pink Woman) (2011) was inspired by a 1910 work by the artist Marcel Duchamp, entitled Portrait of Dr. Dumouchel. In that work Dr. Dumouchel is portrayed by Duchamp surrounded by a mysterious colored energy field that seems to radiate from him: an aura portrait avant la lettre.

For the Auras series Susan Hiller (1940-2019, United States) searched the archives of auraphotography websites for portraits, which she then adapted. Aura photography was made possible in the 1970s by a technique that converted electric frequencies radiated by a person into color images. Hiller deliberately chose to work with 'ordinary' people from different cultural backgrounds, describing their portraits as 'metaphors of the self in the digital age'.

Hiller drew inspiration from everyday things such as postcards, dreams, horror films and archives. Her work is sometimes described as para-conceptual: a meeting between the paranormal world and the world of conceptual art.

Hiller graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1961. Her work is held in renowned collections such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Tate Gallery in London, and has been exhibited by, among others, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and Documenta 13 in Kassel.

In Mo spazzeng' (2018) we see an everyday scene; a man and woman standing together at a bar. With the South African artist Neo Matloga (1993) however, nothing is quite what it seems. The faces of these characters have been constructed out of photo collages of friends, family members and South African celebrities, and mixed up into a clownish whole that takes no account of physiognomy.

The collage paintings of Matloga show domestic scenes from the black community of the South Africa of his youth. The large scale of the paintings calls to mind 19th-century historical pieces, and that link is not accidental. By using only black, white and grey tints in his work, giving them titles in his mother tongue Sepedi, and by 'cutting up' the faces of his characters, Matloga playfully provokes a discussion about the place of the black community within a dominantly (white) Western world view.

Matloga was resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam and the Zeltz MOCAA in South Africa. His work is internationally collected and exhibited, by institutions including the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam, the Zeltz MOCAA, and the Tyburn Gallery in the United Kingdom. In 2018 Matloga was awarded the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst.

The delicate silk fabric with which this work by Emma Talbot (1969, United Kingdom) is constructed slips between your fingers like a fleeting thought. Talbot, who chose the material for that reason, tries in spatial drawings to capture her interior world. The subconscious plays a big role in this, and Open Thoughts (2017) is an invitation to the viewer to go on trusting in the strength of our intuition as a means of communication, in a world where we largely communicate through devices.

In a hypnotic palette in which text, image and decorative patterns are interwoven, Talbot has constructed an oeuvre inspired by her own emotional world and urgent themes such as feminism, capitalism, technology and our relationship to nature. Talbot's work reads like a visual poem, in which a fine balance is sought between the mythical and the everyday, and the viewer can interpret the work without needing to understand every detail.

Talbot studied at the Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom. Her work has been exhibited at locations including the Freud Museum and Turner Contemporary Margate in the United Kingdom, and the GEM Kunstmuseum in the Hague. Talbot's work is held in various public and private collections. In 2020 she was awarded the Max Mara Prize for Women.

This photograph form part of The Missing Negatives of the Sonnenfeld Collection (2008). The Sonnenfeld Collection is a private archive with historical photographs of Israel in the 20th century. Bartana took these iconic photographs as her starting point and staged them anew, thereby sharing the roles between young Israelis and Palestinians. In the photographs it is not possible to see who is Israeli and who is Palestinian. In this way Bartana plays with classic propaganda images that are strongly embedded in the collective memory, and introduces a young mixed generation.

Yael Bartana is known for her films, installations and photography. With her complex multimedia works she explores and examines the visual language used to propagate national and cultural identity. In this way she asks the viewer to think about the way in which countries and nations tell and preserve dominant stories.

Yael Bartana studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel. She went on to study at the School of Visual Arts, New York and the Rijksakademie of Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Her work is held in collections including those of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Van Abbemuseum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Tate Modern London and Museum of Modern Art New York.

What does the eye behold? Offered Eyes by the Iranian artist Shirin Neshat (1957), shows a woman’s eye in which black calligraphic text is written around the iris. It is a subversive Persian poem by an Iranian poetess about self-reflection.

Shirin Neshat was seventeen when she left her native Persia; by the time she returned, the country had undergone a radical transformation in the Islamic revolution, taking the name of Iran. Her videos and photographs incisively explore the conceptual tensions between man and woman, the sacred and the profane, reality and magic. Neshat’s use of Islamic culture’s visual language is powerful and the viewer in inevitably brought to reflection.

Neshat won many awards, including the First International Prize at the 1999 Venice Biennale. In addition to being held in many collections, her work has been shown all over the world in renowned art institutes, such as GEM in the Netherlands, MoMA in the US, Musee der Moderne in Austria, Guggenheim Bilboa and the National Museum of Contemporary Art in South Korea.

This portrait of a little girl regarding us with mild eyes forms part of the series Missing that Shibu Natesan (1966, India) made in 1998, at the conclusion of two years residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Missing comprises a series of portraits of people who have been officially declared missing.

In this series Natesan embraces photorealism for the first time. Although photographs serve as source material for all of his portraits, the artist's aim is not to paint a mere copy of the image. The painting process itself is central, in combination with the processing and subtle manipulation of the source image. The ideas generated by the painting process influence the final work. Natesan's paintings are simultaneously direct and aloof, and as well as historical relevance, they always possess a certain mystery. They draw the viewer as it were into the image, compelling us to reflect.

The work of Natesan has been exhibited, among other venues, at the Vadehra Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Modern Art in India, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki and at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

This portrait by Christto & Andrew entitled Computers in Control (2019) seems to have come from a parallel universe. We recognize that it is a woman by her facial features and red lips, but the moss-green skin, the long nails and the control panel in the background give her an extraterrestrial air. Christto & Andrew, from Puerto Rico and South Africa respectively, draw inspiration for their work from the futuristic city of Qatar, where they both live for part of the year. With a palette that calls the 1960s and '70s to mind they make exaggeratedly staged photographs, installations and films that are strongly influenced by science fiction and raise questions about our concept of time.

In the rapidly growing city of Qatar, which is rooted in Middle Eastern tradition, past and present are greatly mixed. In this city which is still under construction the future always seems to be imminent, making the inhabitants feel that they live in an alternative world.

Christto & Andrew met as students in Spain and worked together as a duo for the first time in 2012. Since then their work has been much shown in solo and group exhibitions, biennales and art fairs, including at the Multimedia Museum in Russia and at Les Rencontres d' Arles in France. They have also produced work for such publications as The New Yorker, Vogue and The British Journal of Photography.

In the 1990s Céline van Balen (1965, Netherlands) made a series of photographs of Islamic girls wearing a hijab (headgear). From a frame-filling close-up those portrayed look you frankly in the eyes. Though each girl has a facial expression, complexion and eye color all her own, she is linked to the others in the series by the headscarf that expresses their faith. The photographs thus reveal not only a many-sided individuality, but also a diverse image of the Muslim community as a whole.

The work of Céline van Balen displays a strong social commitment. Her portraits are without frills or staged poses. A crease in a dry lip, a birthmark, a scar - in Van Balen's work everything is visible. And yet the photographs are a subjective image, chosen by the photographer. "A photo is never a print of reality. I have chosen this photo, it's my vision, I'm the boss over the image."

Van Balen graduated in 1997 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She has had various solo and group exhibitions at such institutions as the Rijksmuseum in 1999, the Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam in 2000, and the Julie Saul Gallery, New York, in 2001.

In the 1990s Céline van Balen (1965, Netherlands) made a series of photographs of Islamic girls wearing a hijab (headgear). From a frame-filling close-up those portrayed look you frankly in the eyes. Though each girl has a facial expression, complexion and eye color all her own, she is linked to the others in the series by the headscarf that expresses their faith. The photographs thus reveal not only a many-sided individuality, but also a diverse image of the Muslim community as a whole.

The work of Céline van Balen displays a strong social commitment. Her portraits are without frills or staged poses. A crease in a dry lip, a birthmark, a scar - in Van Balen's work everything is visible. And yet the photographs are a subjective image, chosen by the photographer. "A photo is never a print of reality. I have chosen this photo, it's my vision, I'm the boss over the image."

Van Balen graduated in 1997 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She has had various solo and group exhibitions at such institutions as the Rijksmuseum in 1999, the Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam in 2000, and the Julie Saul Gallery, New York, in 2001.

With pencil and ink Angus Fairhurst (1966 - 2008, Scotland) made this drawing of a surly looking gorilla holding a man in his arms. 'OK', says the man, 'just don't break my heart'. The gorilla is a recurring element in the work of Fairhurst. He found the contrast between 'this big hairy masculine thing' (the gorilla) and 'a skinny lanky geezer' (himself) endlessly fascinating. This fascination is visible in his drawings, paintings, sculptures, videos and installations. The first works which feature the gorilla consist of a series of animated drawings in absurd and comic situations.

In his work Fairhurst explores the potential of the gorilla to express human characteristics, and also points out the animal characteristics inherent in human beings. Indirectly he touches on such subjects as desire, sex, death and the power of advertising.

Fairhurst studied at Goldsmiths College, London. He was one of the members of the influential group of British artists who broke through internationally in the 1980s under the name of Young British Artists. Although Fairhurst was less in the limelight than his colleagues Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas, his work has been exhibited all over the world.

The striking thing in these two works by Katinka Lampe (1963, Netherlands) is the strong contrast. The girl with her head timidly bent seems to have been hastily, even sketchily painted. The cap covering her hair, on the other hand, has been executed in bold bright colors with an intricate pattern. In the painting of the girl with her gaze fixed straight ahead, skin color and background virtually merge. Only the white of her eyes stands out. The strong contrast makes her gaze unavoidable.

Precisely and with great feeling for beauty, Lampe paints stage-managed children's portraits. To achieve the right image, Lampe photographs her models in specific poses which, together with images from art history, newspapers and magazines, provide the starting point for her paintings. The beauty of Lampe's work - a certain gentleness that invites your gaze to wander over the canvas - leaves us free to form all sorts of associations and connections. It is this freedom that Lampe uses to tackle subjects such as extremism, racism and intolerance.

The work of Lampe has been exhibited in Museum Arnhem, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and at Ron Mandos, and features in various collections, including those of Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam, Museum MORE in Gorssel and the CNAP in France.

The striking thing in these two works by Katinka Lampe (1963, Netherlands) is the strong contrast. The girl with her head timidly bent seems to have been hastily, even sketchily painted. The cap covering her hair, on the other hand, has been executed in bold bright colors with an intricate pattern. In the painting of the girl with her gaze fixed straight ahead, skin color and background virtually merge. Only the white of her eyes stands out. The strong contrast makes her gaze unavoidable.

Precisely and with great feeling for beauty, Lampe paints stage-managed children's portraits. To achieve the right image, Lampe photographs her models in specific poses which, together with images from art history, newspapers and magazines, provide the starting point for her paintings. The beauty of Lampe's work - a certain gentleness that invites your gaze to wander over the canvas - leaves us free to form all sorts of associations and connections. It is this freedom that Lampe uses to tackle subjects such as extremism, racism and intolerance.

The work of Lampe has been exhibited in Museum Arnhem, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and at Ron Mandos, and features in various collections, including those of Museum Van Loon in Amsterdam, Museum MORE in Gorssel and the CNAP in France.

This work by Pipilotti Rist (1962, Switzerland) is a video still from Entlastungen - Pipilotti's Fehler, a work that the artist made in 1988. To the rhythm of post-punk rock music the video shows changing images of the artist dropping suddenly to the ground, and images of electronic disturbance or strange distortions of the image. It is an examination by Rist of the failures and imperfections of the media of film and video. The analogue images are raw and provoke the viewer.

Rist is well known for her experimental video art and installations. The female body is a recurring theme in her work. In Rist's installations a combination of image, sound, and space provide overwhelming sensory experiences. She works in the conviction that to show one's vulnerability is a sign of strength.

Rist has taken part in numerous exhibitions since 1984, including at the MoMa in the US, the Centre Pompidou in France and the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, in Japan. In 2005 she represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale and in 2016 the New Museum in the US organized a retrospective. Her work is held in many prominent international collections.

This lithograph by Kerry James Marshall (1955, United States), entitled Memento, can be read as a requiem for a tumultuous time. At the top we see an angelic pantheon of Afro-American cultural and political figures who died in the struggle for equality between 1959 and 1979. These angels seem to watch over the medallion-shaped portraits of the two most important martyrs of those years: John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The whole is reminiscent of a memorial. To the right a woman holding a funeral bouquet looks back at the viewer, as if inviting us to mourn with her.

Kerry James Marshall is one of the most prominent artists and politically engaged painters of this moment. He uses the genre of historical painting in order to show Afro-American history and the legacy of the civil rights movement in a complex modern context.

James Marshall has exhibited his work at many prominent museums and galleries, including MOCA Los Angeles and MoMa in the US, Museu de Arte de São Paulo in Brazil and the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien in Austria. His work is included in numerous important collections, particularly in the US.

Snapshot-like photographs, taken by Caroline Walker (1982, United Kingdom) in the streets of London, form the basis of her paintings. She portrays mainly working women in female-dominated occupations such as hotel and catering work, cleaning, and retail trade. In The Palmist (2016) we look between two figures into the eyes of a palmist. The two cropped figures in the composition, one with her hand outstretched to be read, give the viewer the feeling of being a voyeur at an intimate scene to which he has not been invited.

The voyeuristic scenes in Walker's paintings build on the language of urban existence. In emotionally charged and often luxurious spaces Walker creates graphic stories that disturb the traditional idea of the woman as subject. The work explores what it is to be a woman in this modern image-conscious age.

Walker has exhibited her work at such venues as Marlborough Fine Arts London in the United Kingdom, GRIMM Gallery in the US, the Milan Triennale in Italy and the Fine Arts Society in London. Her work is held in various international collections, such as the Saatchi Collection in the United Kingdom and the Woong Yeul Lee Collection in South Korea.

The Favoured Pillow (2021) by Helen Verhoeven (1974, Netherlands) was painted during lockdown. Using small canvases and a subdued palette, Verhoeven reverted in this period to the time-honored theme of the portrait, in order to explore the inner world of the isolated individual. Through the stylized attitudes, gestures and expressions of the figures in these paintings, the naive visual language and curious framing, Verhoeven succeeds in portraying the different facets of a somewhat dark but humorous subconscious.

Verhoeven's paintings are inhabited by human figures. Her modern-day group portraits read like historical paintings with a dark undertone. Verhoeven's crude and sometimes deliberately awkward painting style produces paintings that read like collages. A field of colors in which human figure, area and space overlap.

Helen Verhoeven studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, the New York Academy of Art and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Work by Verhoeven has been exhibited at venues including The Hermitage in Amsterdam and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. She was awarded the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst in 2008, the Wolvecampprijs in 2010 and the ABN AMRO art prize in 2019. Verhoeven's work is held in prominent collections, including those of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Miami.

Zanele Muholi (1972, South Africa) is a photographer and activist and won fame with their work on the black LGBTQI identity in present-day South Africa. With their documentaries and sensitive portraits Muholi exposes the stigma around the LGBTQI community in South Africa, and succeeds in broaching the subject and making it a focus of discussion in society.

In the work, Muholi Muholi, Parktown, 2016, which forms part of the series Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness), Muholi turns the camera on themselves in an effort to overturn stereotypical representations of black women and to put new images in their place. Over a whole year Muholi made a self-portrait every day in which she undermines cliché images in a humorous way and succeeds in provoking a dialogue about identity.

Muholi has won several prizes, including the ICP Infinity Award and the Fine Prize during the Carnegie International. Their work forms part of many important collections and has been often exhibited worldwide in venues including the Venice Biennale of 2013, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and the Carnegie Museum of Art in the US.

This iconic photograph of Rosaria Schifani, the 22-year-old widow of bodyguard Vito Schifani, was taken in May 1993 by Letizia Battaglia (1935, Italy), a year after Rosaria's husband was murdered by a car explosion in Capaci. In the past few decades this image has taken on the symbolic weight of a nation's sorrow.  The photograph reminds us of those who rose in revolt against the mafia. Battaglia took this photograph in the house of Felice Cavallaro, for the cover of a biography of Rosaria that he published in 1993. Her sorrow is controlled, her eyes are closed. The photograph lays emphasis on the withdrawn, guarded life forced on those who contest the covert civil war waged by the mafia.

Letizia Battaglia has gained renown as a Sicilian photographer and photojournalist for her coverage of mafia violence. In the course of her career she has made more than 600.000 photographs, many of which record the deeds and atrocities of the mafia - to ensure that they will never be forgotten. Battaglia is self-taught. Her work has been published in renowned international media and her photographic series have won several journalistic prizes.

In this expressive oil painting by Chantal Joffe (1969, United States) we see a figure with a Batman mask over his eyes. The bright blue striped sweater contrasts with the black mask and matching black cape. In spite of the lively colors that Joffe uses and the childlike subject that she has chosen - a dressing-up session - the work has a mysterious undertone which is due in part to her use of perspective.

Chantal Joffe's main subjects are portraits of women and children on large, sometimes enormous, canvases and panels. The small format of this work is an exception. Joffe finds inspiration in photographs of family and friends, and in magazines. She does not paint an exact copy of her source materials, but slightly upsets or disturbs the balance. Her supple brush strokes give her figures an intense presence.

The work of Joffe is held in internationally prominent collections. In 2016 she had a large solo exhibition at the National Museum of Iceland, and in 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery, London. In 2006 she was designated one of the 30 most important female artists of all time by Latest Art Magazine, and she was awarded the prestigious Charles Wollaston Award by the Royal Academy in London.

The photographic images that can be seen through the embroidery in the work of Julie Cockburn (1966, United Kingdom) have the air of a distant past. A portrait of a schoolboy, or a young woman with beautifully coiffed hair in the style of the 1950s: Cockburn transforms found images that she obtains from eBay or second-hand shops. With needle and thread or scissors and glue she adds layers and embroidered designs to the portraits that she finds.

Cockburn projects her own ideas on these found images, thus sparking off a dialogue about modernity and art history, gender and identity, nature and urbanization and the relationship between the creative process and the idea. However, it is generally her instinctive first reaction to the found images that determines the eventual appearance of the final work. By transforming secondhand or generic images into something unique and handmade, Cockburn adds value and emphasizes the contrast between mass production and craftsmanship.

Julie Cockburn studied at the Chelsea School of Art and rounded off her BA in Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Central St. Martins School of Art and Design, London. She has exhibited at such venues as The Photographers' Gallery in London, Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and the Yale Centre for British Art, US.

The photographic images that can be seen through the embroidery in the work of Julie Cockburn (1966, United Kingdom) have the air of a distant past. A portrait of a schoolboy, or a young woman with beautifully coiffed hair in the style of the 1950s: Cockburn transforms found images that she obtains from eBay or second-hand shops. With needle and thread or scissors and glue she adds layers and embroidered designs to the portraits that she finds.

Cockburn projects her own ideas on these found images, thus sparking off a dialogue about modernity and art history, gender and identity, nature and urbanization and the relationship between the creative process and the idea. However, it is generally her instinctive first reaction to the found images that determines the eventual appearance of the final work. By transforming secondhand or generic images into something unique and handmade, Cockburn adds value and emphasizes the contrast between mass production and craftsmanship.

Julie Cockburn studied at the Chelsea School of Art and rounded off her BA in Fine Art (Sculpture) at the Central St. Martins School of Art and Design, London. She has exhibited at such venues as The Photographers' Gallery in London, Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and the Yale Centre for British Art, US.

In Barbie (1997) by Marlene Dumas (1953, South Africa) the iconic image of ideal female beauty, the Barbie doll, regards the viewer with a vacant stare. Dumas portrays her in almost transparent black ink, only the bright blue eyes stand out. In her work she regularly provokes discussion on images of women, and comments on complex subjects such as identity and representation.

Marlene Dumas is known for her portrayal of human figures based on photographs, snapshots and images from magazines and newspapers, which she has assembled in a gigantic private archive. In Dumas' work these images are given a new context and palette; the painting is never a straightforward  reproduction of the photograph. According to Dumas, the stream of photographic images that we see every day influences the way in which we experience each other and the world around us. Dumas tries in her work to expose the psychological, social and political aspect of these images.

Dumas was resident at De Ateliers '63 in Amsterdam. She has exhibited at many prominent galleries and museums, including large retrospective exhibitions at the MoMa in the US and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Her work is held in diverse prominent collections, such as the Tokyo MoCa in Japan, Centre Pompidou in France and the Frankfurt MMK in Germany.

This work by Ina van Zyl (1971, South Africa) forms part of the series Among Others, a series of portraits of the artist's family and friends. Natasja is a frame-filling portrait of fellow painter Natasja Kensmil. The complex layers of oil paint in shades of brown and alienating green are typical of Van Zyl's work and endow the face of her fellow painter with a hypnotic atmosphere and depth.

Ina van Zyl paints figuratively and in shimmering colours. The heat of South Africa seeps through in the subjects of her early work; varnished toe-nails in sandals, sweet voluptuous fruit such as apples and plums. Nowadays the accent lies more on the deep, dark and intense colours of the South African natural world. The themes that figure in her work are claustrophobia, shame, sexuality and human contact or the lack of it.

Van Zyl graduated from the University of Stellenbosch and De Ateliers, Amsterdam. Her work is on show at various locations, including GEM in The Hague, the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, the Institut Néerlandais in Paris, and the Dordrechts Museum. Van Zyl's work features in many private and public collections, including that of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 2009 she won the Jeanne Oosting Prize for figurative painting.

In 2009 Annaleen Louwes (1959, Netherlands) was commissioned by the Gemeentelijke Gezondheidsdient (Municipal Health Service) of Amsterdam to make You Can't Nail A Pudding To A Wall - a photographic book about psychiatric patients in New York and Amsterdam. The work Maria, New York 2009 features in this book, and is a penetrating portrait of one of the patients. Louwes portrayed the young woman, Maria, without frills, thus capturing both her vulnerability and her strength.

The work of Annaleen Louwes explores the grey area between what we regard as normal and abnormal. She is fascinated by those who manage to survive in the most diverse circumstances, and the way in which this is revealed by their body language. As photographer, Louwes tries to grasp the fragility, the transience and the emptiness of existence.

Annaleen Louwes has exhibited at venues including the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the GEM in The Hague, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Huis Marseille, also in Amsterdam. Her work is held in various collections, including that of Museum Arnhem and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In 2012 she was awarded the Nationale Portret Prijs.

Zanele Muholi (1972, South Africa) is a photographer and activist and won fame with their work on the black LGBTQI identity in present-day South Africa. With their documentaries and sensitive portraits Muholi exposes the stigma around the LGBTQI community in South Africa, and succeeds in broaching the subject and making it a focus of discussion in society.

In the work, Muholi Muholi, Parktown, 2016, which forms part of the series Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness), Muholi turns the camera on themselves in an effort to overturn stereotypical representations of black women and to put new images in their place. Over a whole year Muholi made a self-portrait every day in which she undermines cliché images in a humorous way and succeeds in provoking a dialogue about identity.

Muholi has won several prizes, including the ICP Infinity Award and the Fine Prize during the Carnegie International. Their work forms part of many important collections and has been often exhibited worldwide in venues including the Venice Biennale of 2013, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Tate Modern in the United Kingdom and the Carnegie Museum of Art in the US.

This telling portrait of a young woman was made by artist and essayist Sam Samiee (1988, Iran). Pegah is a common Iranian name, in this case referring to the artist's sister. In Samiee's multidisciplinary oeuvre the portrait occupies a special place. Almost all the models that recur in his paintings are people from the artist's circle of family and friends, who are frequently recorded by him.

Samiee makes space-filling installations in which objects and sculptural elements are combined with two-dimensional paintings. Within these installations the paintings often flout the rules of the painting as a flat surface. In his work he explores the boundaries of classical painting and draws his inspiration from Western art history, philosophy and psychoanalysis, and Persian literature. In this way he creates a visual language in which Western and Oriental culture merge seamlessly.

Samiee was artist in residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited in, for example, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and is held in various public and private collections. In 2016 he received the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst.

The diminutive size of this work by Shibu Natesan (1966, India) belies the stature of the man portrayed therein. Gandhi (1997) forms part of a series of paintings entitled Missing, realized during Natesan’s residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, in which he embraced photorealism for the first time.

Often seeking inspiration for his work in photography, Natesan is not concerned with ‘just repainting’ photographs. For him, it is the process of painting itself, the re-working and slight manipulation of the source images, and the thoughts that arise from doing so that are important. Characterized by a sense of directness and detachment, Natesan’s canvasses are not only a testimony to history. They draw the viewer in, and in this case cause us to reflect upon the still relevant values for which Mahatma Gandhi stood: non-violence, respect and independence.

Natesan’s work was shown at Vadehra Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Modern Art in India, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in Japan, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki and at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Netherlands, among others.

Silent deejay (1997) is a monumental portrait of a well-known London deejay. Only his head is to be seen, from behind, as he looks sideways over his shoulder. The pose recalls classical portraits of 17th-century masters. Over the monochrome work Ang has stretched colored gauze, a semi-transparent veiling that serves as a sort of filter. The veiling brings about a hushing effect that seems to slow down  the process of both looking and thinking.

Tiong Ang (1961, Indonesia) has used diverse media to achieve his committed oeuvre. In his work he examines cultural and societal issues. Recurring themes are the impact of mass and digital media on how we experience the world and how we remember it. Another frequent topic is the fear evoked by increasing globalization and mobility.

Ang graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksakademie voor Schone Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited at venues throughout the world, including the 2008 Shanghai Biennale, the 2001 Venice Biennale, the 1995 Istanbul Biennale and the Havana Biennale of 1994.

Rainbow (2015) by Melanie Bonajo (1978, Netherlands) is an iconic still from her video work Night Soil / Economy of Love (2015). The second part of Bonajo's Night Soil trilogy is a portrait of a group of activist sex workers in Brooklyn who see their work as a means of regaining power in a field of work where men are often still in charge. The activists in the video argue for a different approach to sexuality; one that starts from the position of the woman and the female orgasm, thus giving the power to the female body.

It is a pithy work within the many-sided oeuvre of Melanie Bonajo, which is often about reconciling opposites. For example, she examines the spiritual emptiness of her generation and the changing relationship of humans to nature, and tries to fathom existential questions by reflecting on our domestic life, and our ideas on gender and classification.

Melanie Bonajo studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and completed residencies at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam and ISCP in New York. She has had several solo exhibitions, at venues including FOAM in Amsterdam, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Design Museum in Ghent and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Melanie Bonajo will be representing the Netherlands at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2021.

Rainbow (2015) by Melanie Bonajo (1978, Netherlands) is an iconic still from her video work Night Soil / Economy of Love (2015). The second part of Bonajo's Night Soil trilogy is a portrait of a group of activist sex workers in Brooklyn who see their work as a means of regaining power in a field of work where men are often still in charge. The activists in the video argue for a different approach to sexuality; one that starts from the position of the woman and the female orgasm, thus giving the power to the female body.

It is a pithy work within the many-sided oeuvre of Melanie Bonajo, which is often about reconciling opposites. For example, she examines the spiritual emptiness of her generation and the changing relationship of humans to nature, and tries to fathom existential questions by reflecting on our domestic life, and our ideas on gender and classification.

Melanie Bonajo studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and completed residencies at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst in Amsterdam and ISCP in New York. She has had several solo exhibitions, at venues including FOAM in Amsterdam, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the Design Museum in Ghent and Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Melanie Bonajo will be representing the Netherlands at the 59th edition of the Venice Biennale in 2021.

No names, but symbols and number combinations as titles; it calls to mind the codes of a registration system. In the work of Saskia Noor van Imhoff (1982, Netherlands) registration and order are an important motif. Inspired by the art world itself, she examines in her work how museums, visitors and collectors keep art alive by talking about it, organizing it and filing it away. Artworks from previous installations are dismantled and eagerly put to use by Van Imhoff as construction material for a new installation. Her work can be read as an ever growing and changing archive.

#+37.02 (2019) comprises an antique plaster mould and a wax cast from the same mould. The work questions the relationship between original and copy. This theme is also central to #+39.02 (2019), which shows an x-ray photograph of an abstract sculpture made earlier by Van Imhoff. The artist has engraved the contours of the 'original' in the Plexiglass.

Van Imhoff was resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. She was awarded the ABN Amro Kunstprijs in 2017 and was nominated in the same year for the Prix de Rome. Her work has been collected and exhibited throughout the world, including by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in France and at the 11th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.

No names, but symbols and number combinations as titles; it calls to mind the codes of a registration system. In the work of Saskia Noor van Imhoff (1982, Netherlands) registration and order are an important motif. Inspired by the art world itself, she examines in her work how museums, visitors and collectors keep art alive by talking about it, organizing it and filing it away. Artworks from previous installations are dismantled and eagerly put to use by Van Imhoff as construction material for a new installation. Her work can be read as an ever growing and changing archive.

#+37.02 (2019) comprises an antique plaster mould and a wax cast from the same mould. The work questions the relationship between original and copy. This theme is also central to #+39.02 (2019), which shows an x-ray photograph of an abstract sculpture made earlier by Van Imhoff. The artist has engraved the contours of the 'original' in the Plexiglass.

Van Imhoff was resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. She was awarded the ABN Amro Kunstprijs in 2017 and was nominated in the same year for the Prix de Rome. Her work has been collected and exhibited throughout the world, including by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in France and at the 11th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.

No names, but symbols and number combinations as titles; it calls to mind the codes of a registration system. In the work of Saskia Noor van Imhoff (1982, Netherlands) registration and order are an important motif. Inspired by the art world itself, she examines in her work how museums, visitors and collectors keep art alive by talking about it, organizing it and filing it away. Artworks from previous installations are dismantled and eagerly put to use by Van Imhoff as construction material for a new installation. Her work can be read as an ever growing and changing archive.

#+37.02 (2019) comprises an antique plaster mould and a wax cast from the same mould. The work questions the relationship between original and copy. This theme is also central to #+39.02 (2019), which shows an x-ray photograph of an abstract sculpture made earlier by Van Imhoff. The artist has engraved the contours of the 'original' in the Plexiglass.

Van Imhoff was resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Germany. She was awarded the ABN Amro Kunstprijs in 2017 and was nominated in the same year for the Prix de Rome. Her work has been collected and exhibited throughout the world, including by the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Centre Pompidou in France and at the 11th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea.

For the Ego series, of which the painting Autumns' Ego (2019) forms a part, Alex Dordoy (1985, United Kingdom) has used advertisements from the 1920s and '30s as source material. He has stripped these images of their original meaning and given them a new context. The romanticism of the original scenic images contrasts with the bright unnatural colors that Dordoy employs in his paintings. And yet the melancholy in his carefully executed and almost graphic works still makes itself felt.

Through his paintings Alex Dordoy wishes to examine the mechanisms that influence what we find beautiful and visually attractive. Existing objects, photographs, images and patterns are digitally processed and manipulated, then further developed in paintings or sculptures.

Dordoy studied Painting and Printmaking at the Glasgow School of Art, graduating in 2007. From 2009 he was a resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Important solo exhibitions were Persistencebeatsresistance at Inverleith House, Edinburgh (2014), Krast en Caster Crack Autumn at the Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam (2013) and Winner at The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2009).

These painted studies of light and color by Pieter Vermeersch (1973, Belgium) are based on photographs. Pure abstraction on the one hand, photographic realism on the other. A color gradient changes into light, dissolves into space and becomes one with it. These three works form part of a larger series in which the colors gradually merge into each other. In each separate work too there is a subtle transition of colors to be found, and through the layering the light seems almost to shine through the canvas from behind.

Pieter Vermeersch is a painter first and foremost, but does not always work within the traditional boundaries of the canvas. He employs various mediums such as canvas, marble, photography and architecture. Time, space and color form the three cornerstones of Vermeersch' s oeuvre. These concepts lie at the base of his gradient murals and architectural interventions.

Vermeersch has exhibited all over the world, including frequent shows at Gallery Perrotin in Hong Kong, Japan, France and the US, among others. His work has also been shown at the Parasol Unit in the United Kingdom, in the MSK in Ghent, Belgium, and in  the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen in Haarlem. He has also realized many works in public spaces.

These painted studies of light and color by Pieter Vermeersch (1973, Belgium) are based on photographs. Pure abstraction on the one hand, photographic realism on the other. A color gradient changes into light, dissolves into space and becomes one with it. These three works form part of a larger series in which the colors gradually merge into each other. In each separate work too there is a subtle transition of colors to be found, and through the layering the light seems almost to shine through the canvas from behind.

Pieter Vermeersch is a painter first and foremost, but does not always work within the traditional boundaries of the canvas. He employs various mediums such as canvas, marble, photography and architecture. Time, space and color form the three cornerstones of Vermeersch' s oeuvre. These concepts lie at the base of his gradient murals and architectural interventions.

Vermeersch has exhibited all over the world, including frequent shows at Gallery Perrotin in Hong Kong, Japan, France and the US, among others. His work has also been shown at the Parasol Unit in the United Kingdom, in the MSK in Ghent, Belgium, and in  the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen in Haarlem. He has also realized many works in public spaces.

These painted studies of light and color by Pieter Vermeersch (1973, Belgium) are based on photographs. Pure abstraction on the one hand, photographic realism on the other. A color gradient changes into light, dissolves into space and becomes one with it. These three works form part of a larger series in which the colors gradually merge into each other. In each separate work too there is a subtle transition of colors to be found, and through the layering the light seems almost to shine through the canvas from behind.

Pieter Vermeersch is a painter first and foremost, but does not always work within the traditional boundaries of the canvas. He employs various mediums such as canvas, marble, photography and architecture. Time, space and color form the three cornerstones of Vermeersch' s oeuvre. These concepts lie at the base of his gradient murals and architectural interventions.

Vermeersch has exhibited all over the world, including frequent shows at Gallery Perrotin in Hong Kong, Japan, France and the US, among others. His work has also been shown at the Parasol Unit in the United Kingdom, in the MSK in Ghent, Belgium, and in  the Frans Hals Museum and De Hallen in Haarlem. He has also realized many works in public spaces.

Lumberjack Summer (2021) by the artist Daniel Knorr (1968, Romania) is a 'canvas sculpture'. In creating these sculptural paintings Knorr uses a special technique whereby the paint is separated from the underlying surface. The flexible layer of paint can then be folded in every shape and direction. The title of the work, like the colors that Knorr uses, refer to the painting Lumberjack (1912-1913) by the famous Russian artist Malevich (1879-1935). The painting of Malevich is a brightly colored abstract of a lumberjack surrounded by a mound of logs, and illustrates the exploitation of natural resources at the start of the industrial revolution.

Daniel Knorr has been building a many-sided and multidisciplinary oeuvre since the 1990s, with photography, installations, sculptural works, painting and performances. He is well known for projects in which he uses unconventional materials such as cocaine, casts of potholes in the road and smoke, in order to initiate political and theoretical discussion.

Daniel Knorr represented Romania at the Venice Biennale of 2005, and took part in Documenta 14 in Kassel in 2017. He is seen as one of the most important artists of his generation. His work is held by collections such as the Migros Museum in Zurich, the Stasi Museum in Leipzig and the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich.

This tufted wall hanging by Afra Eisma (1993, Netherlands), entitled Cuddle Squeeze Tittle-Talle (2021) explodes from the wall. Along the margins of the hanging marches a motley procession of feline figures with lanterns and balloons. At the head of the parade we see a veritable carnival float, and the cat parade is led by a huge two-headed giant clutching a yellow cat.

Afra Eisma's rugs, papier-mâché works and ceramic objects are colourful, tactile and lively. Eisma works intuitively and associatively, feeling free to link everything together. Slouching human figures, animals and aliens populate her world - a stimulating fantasy world in which art is the connecting factor, creating a place which does not exclude but where everyone can feel at home and find points of departure to create a story of their own.

Afra Eisma is a young talent who studied Fine Art at the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten at The Hague and Central Saint Martins, London. She was nominated in 2018 for the Koninklijke Prijs voor Vrije Schilderkunst and in 2020 for the Piket Kunstprijs. Among other venues, Eisma has exhibited her work at de Vleeshal in Middelburg, at 1646 and Stroom in The Hague, and at the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden.

As in a modern pietà the woman in this sculpture by Buhlebezwe Siwani (1987, South Africa) holds a child in her arms. The title of the work comes from the Zulu and means 'memorial'. The work calls to mind the iconic photograph of Sam Nzima, in which thirteen-year-old Hector Pieterson dies in the arms of a friend. Pieterson was shot dead by the police in a township in Soweto during a revolt against Apartheid. His death is seen as a turning point in the decades-long struggle of the black South African population against Apartheid.

The sculpture consists of scented green soap, a material that often recurs in Siwani's work and refers to the patriarchal South African culture that labels the female body as unclean. Siwan's oeuvre comprises photography, performance, sculpture, painting and installations, and tackles questions such as black female identity, colonialism and male-dominated society. Siwani is an initiated Sangoma (spiritual healer); rituals and the relationship between Christianity and African spirituality feature regularly in her work and performances.

Buhlebezwe Siwani studied at The Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg and Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town. She was awarded the Martienssen Prize and the Katrine Harries Print Cabinet Purchase Award. Her work has been widely exhibited throughout the world, in combination with performances that she devised herself.

In this video by Buhlebezwe Siwani (1987, South Africa) we see the artist washing herself with green soap and water. This cheap soap is a frequently recurring material in the work of Siwani and refers to the patriarchal South African culture that labels the female body as unclean. Green soap is essential in the South African countryside and is used on a daily basis as an all-purpose cleaner by people of a low social and economic status. Siwani has bad memories of it; she was washed with it in her grandmother's bathtub in front of other people. Boys did not have to undergo such humiliation.

Siwani's oeuvre comprises photography, performance, sculpture, painting and installations, and tackles questions such as black female identity, colonialism and male-dominated society. Siwani is an initiated Sangoma (spiritual healer); rituals and the relationship between Christianity and African spirituality feature regularly in her work and performances.

Buhlebezwe Siwani studied at The Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg and Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town. She was awarded the Martienssen Prize and the Katrine Harries Print Cabinet Purchase Award. Her work has been widely exhibited throughout the world, in combination with performances that she devised herself.

On a grey-white background we see an interplay of colored bands. Deep red and black lines dance over two oblique blue stripes, warm white lines form a gentle contrast with the grey-white on which they have been applied, and at the top of the canvas a bright yellow square draws our attention. Although the work dates from 1965, it shimmers with vitality.

The Dutch artist and poet Willem Hussem (1900-1974) has worked in various styles in the roughly fifty years that he was active as a painter. He worked in the style of Van Gogh in the 1920s, and in that of Picasso during the Second World War. Towards the end of the war Hussem experimented with calligraphic drawings which would strongly influence his later work. Hussem found the basis for the simplicity and purity of his late abstract work in Zen Buddhism and the philosophy of Hegel.

Willem Hussem represented the Netherlands in 1960 at the Venice Biennale. During his life he had solo exhibitions at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and the Stedelijk Museum in Schiedam, and took part in large group exhibitions in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. His work was also shown twice at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, US. Hussem's work is held in various public and private collections.

In Zelfportret met Kruis (1999) we see a woman in 17th-century costume - complete with lace ruff and jewelry - tied to a cross. Not proud and free, as depicted in the formal portraits that we know from the 17th century, but in chains. This self-portrait by Natasja Kensmil (1973, Netherlands), in which her black-painted face grins at the viewer, confronts us with the bitter aftertaste of the Netherlands' colonial past in Surinam.

Kensmil frequently refers in her work to (colonial) history. She is convinced that the present is shaped in relation to, and in negotiation with, the past. In her work she repeatedly questions the relationships between human beings and their identity, the society in which they live, religion, nature and themselves. Both construction and deconstruction are prominently present in human nature; these principles are essential in our drive for change and renewal. Kensmil's work demonstrates that she is not afraid of that nature.

Kensmil was a resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. Her work is held in various public and private collections and frequently exhibited in, among others, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, RHA in Ireland, the CEAC in China and the Moscow MoMa in Russia.

In the work In Pursuit of Bling - Indulgence (2014) Otobong Nkanga (1974, Nigeria) explores the distribution of the mineral mica, which is mined in Africa, among other places. In powder form the mineral is much used in the cosmetic industry. Long-term exposure to high concentrations of the material,  as in the case of African miners, is hazardous and sometimes even lethal. In this work we see the artist holding a piece of mica to her lips. She links the use of the raw material in shiny cosmetics to the mineral supplements that we take for our health. Her work reminds us of violence and the exploitation of human beings and nature that lies at the heart of the shining 'bling' that we crave.

Otobong Nkanga has built up an extensive multidisciplinary oeuvre. Recurring themes in her work are the (post)colonial history of her native land, the exploitation of the earth and the unequal distribution of power between humans and nature, or men and women.

Nkanga was resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been shown at venues including the Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and at Documenta 14. Nganga's work is held in numerous private and public collections. In 2017 she was awarded the BelgianArtPrize.

A lump of ice nestles in a pair of cupped hands like a diamond in a padded jewelry box. An apt analogy given the project from which this work derives: the video installation Stones Against Diamonds (2016) by filmmaker photographer Isaac Julien (1960, United Kingdom). Shot in a remote Icelandic glacier cave, Stones Against Diamonds is inspired by a letter that Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi wrote to her husband. Turning conventional notions of beauty on their head, Bo Bardi stated her preference for the beauty of natural elements over that of diamonds. Photographed as the ice cave crumbled and melted as a result of global warming, this work is a reminder of the preciousness and vulnerability of nature.

One of the objectives of his work is to break down the barriers that exist between different artistic disciplines, drawing from and commenting on film, dance, photography, music, theatre, painting and sculpture, and uniting them to construct a powerfully visual narrative.

Julien’s work has been exhibited at the 2015 Venice Biennale, MoMA, US, Centre Pompidou, France and Tate Modern, UK. His work is held in many collections, including those of Museum De Pont, the Netherlands, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Guggenheim Museum, US. Julien was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for Services to the Arts in 2017.

In Meeting Place (2020) a woman and a dog meet in a dream landscape. The work symbolizes human kinship with animals, plants and the natural environment. The tenderness that emanates from this meeting shows that this connection goes further than mere words. The work sets the viewer thinking about the way in which we can stay in contact with the intangible energy that connects everything. The stylized lines and shapes of the landscape refer to the ancient human need to base decorative forms on wild unspoiled nature.

In a hypnotic palette in which text, image and decorative patterns are interwoven, Talbot has constructed an oeuvre inspired by her own emotional world and urgent themes such as feminism, capitalism, technology and our relationship to nature. Her work reads like a visual poem, in which a fine balance is sought between the mythical and the everyday, and the viewer can interpret the work without needing to understand every detail.

Talbot studied at the Royal College of Art in the United Kingdom. Her work has been exhibited at locations including the Freud Museum and Turner Contemporary Margate in the United Kingdom, and the GEM Kunstmuseum in the Hague. Talbot's work is included in various public and private collections. In 2020 she was awarded the Max Mara Prize for Women.

Otobong Nkanga’s drawings, installations, photographs, sculptures and performances examine the social and topographical relationship with our everyday environment. By exploring the notion of land as a place of non-belonging, Nkanga provides an alternative meaning to the social ideas of identity. Paradoxically, she brings to light the memories and historical impacts provoked by humans and nature. She lays out the inherent complexities of resources like soil and earth and their potential values in order to provoke narratives and stories connected to land.

Employing sculpture, drawing and performance, but also writing, publishing and pedagogical formats, Nkanga looks at the notion of ‘land’ as a geological and discursive formation, often taking as her starting point the systems and procedures by which raw materials are locally dug up, technologically processed and globally circulated. From there she follows the threads that intertwine ores, material culture and the construction of desire with the redistribution of power and knowledge.

Nkanga raises questions about the historical structure of a place, both physically and metaphysically. She often refers to the different objects and elements in her work as constellations. Constellations are imaginary patterns or diagrams which allow her to chart the intersections of nature, politics, colonialist economies and different geographies and histories.

Nkanga graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria and Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. She was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at London’s Tate Modern and was presented at Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel, among other venues. Nkanga’s work is held in various private and public collections. In 2017, she was awarded the Belgian Art Prize. In the spring of 2018, a solo exhibition of Nkanga’s work will open at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

Root, rise, bloom, fall, wilt (2020) by Sophie Steengracht (1991, Netherlands) shows the processes of growth and decay. Not just the dissemination of seeds, the underground growth of roots and aboveground flowering, but also the development of moulds which bring about a rotting process that prepares the earth for new life. Steengracht examines these stadia in the biodynamic garden that she created and which can be seen in the virtual reality film The Arched Garden (2020). Steengracht shows the viewer around her pigment garden, letting us share in the sowing, reaping and maintenance of the garden, and the making of the inks that she used to create this work.

For Steengracht, gardening is a way of getting closer to the rhythms and processes of nature. 'I long for a switch in general perception, in which humans are a link in the processes of nature, instead of rulers over their environment', says Steengracht. The garden and her plants recur in her work in many guises.

Sophie Steengracht studied at the Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in Florence and the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. In 2018 she was awarded the prestigious Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Grant. The work of Steengracht has been shown at such venues as the Singer Museum in Laren and the Mondriaanfonds' Prospects exhibition, and published in book form by Waanders Uitgeverij.

A woman sits at the edge of a dusty road, an unfinished stretch of the Trans Amazônica motorway. Her knees are drawn up and her head is bent, her long hair covers her whole body. The pose alludes to funeral rituals of indigenous tribes in the Amazon region. The road and the trees in the background, like the woman in the foreground, are regularly obscured from view by enormous clouds of dust, so that she seems to merge with the landscape around her.

The performances of Luciana Magno (1987, Brazil) explore ways in which the body merges with the landscape and the environment. Her hair, which has not been cut for ten years, forms a recurring motive. Magno reflects in her work on the industrial development of the Amazonian region and its political, social and anthropological consequences. The work sets us thinking about indigenous customs, traditions and rituals, and the power that threatens them.

Magno graduated in Visual Arts and Image Technology at the Universidade da Amazônia, Belém and completed her master's degree in Visual Arts at the Federal University do Pará, also in Belém. Her work features in the collections of the Museu de Arte do Rio, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea do Rio Grande do Sul, the Fundação Romulo Maiorana and the Associação Cultural VideoBrasil.

The work from earth (16 parts) (2015) by herman de vries (1931, Netherlands) consists of sixteen sheets of paper smeared with samples of earth collected by the artist from all over the world, from Oudeschild on Texel and Varkala in India to Quandong in Australia. The various pigments are typical of these places, and show the diversity of the natural environment. The work can be seen within AkzoNobel as an artistic counterpart of the international scientific research that the company carries out into raw materials and pigments.

In the work of herman de vries nature is represented as it appears. De vries portrays natural objects and processes. The compositions selected are based on chance and carried out with a reserved aesthetic approach that reveals little personal touch. His work witnesses to a great respect for nature and a desire for simplicity and awareness.

The work of de vries is frequently exhibited and forms part of various collections, including that of the Nationalengalerie Berlin, Germany, the MoMa in the US, the Victoria and Albert Museum in Great Britain and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In 2015 his work was on show at the Venice Biennale.