Beyond These Walls

On a tree trunk cast in bronze, a mounted chick, a glass bell jar, a ball and a piece of wood search for balance. Vanitas (for Folkert V.) (V) (2013) by Gijs Assmann (1966, Netherlands) is dedicated to Folkert van Hagen, the architect of AkzoNobel’s headquarters, where the work is now on view. The work has the ability to connect people and make the impossible possible through pragmatic perseverance and action. This rare and shaky quality is embodied in the almost impossible composition of the balancing parts.

A constant in the work of Gijs Assmann is the Vanitas sculptures series, on which he has been working since 1992. Each work in this series is dedicated to a friend or acquaintance and can be understood as a portrait of this person, made with the means of a still life. The images express the idea that everything is transient and form a solidified ode to the friend or acquaintance in question.

Gijs Assmann studied at the AKI in Enschede and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited in renowned such as Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (NL); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL); Lisser Art Museum, (NL); Teylers Museum in Haarlem (NL); Museum Het Princessehof in Leeuwarden (NL) and Museum Jan Cunen in Oss (NL). His work is included in various public and private collections. In 1999, Assmann received the Jeanne Oosting Prize for watercolor art and in 2021 he was the first winner of Ceramics Prize De Kei.

New Dutch Views #51, The Netherlands (2021) of Marwan Bassiouni (1985, Switzerland) places us on a soft blue carpet. The entire room is bathed in blue light. Repetitive arabesque tiles emphasize the impressive height of the room, and a floral stained-glass window connects the inside with the outside. The cohesion is only broken by the bright white emergency exit sign, beyond which a typically Dutch landscape awaits. In the span of a year, Bassiouni visited more than seventy of the over four hundred mosques in the Netherlands. In the photos he took there, he captures the interior merging with the Dutch landscape visible from the mosque.

Bassiouni’s razor-sharp photos question the way Islam is represented in the West and show a society in which different cultures coexist alongside and with each other. New Dutch Views is a symbolic portrait of Bassiouni’s dual cultural background and emphasizes the fact that a new Western identity is emerging.

Marwan Bassiouni studied photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and at the Photography School of Vevey in Switzerland. His work has been exhibited at the Fotomuseum, The Hague (NL); Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL); Kunsthaus Zürich, Winterthur (CH); The International Center of Photography, New York (US); Fotostiftung Schweiz (CH); Foam, Amsterdam (NL); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL); The Shanghai Center of Photography (CN); The Benaki Museum, Athens (GR) and Cultuurhuis De Warande, Turnhout (BE).

Daylight falls in through large sheets of porous paper. The colors applied to the scooped paper pulp gain intensity from the light making its way inside. Lex ter Braak (1950, Netherlands) created the works in response to his nature walks. Walking, according to Ter Braak, is a form of absorption in the world beyond the image and language we have formed to organize the world around us. What remains when we indulge in a walk is nature as experience.

Lex ter Braak brings together his work under the umbrella title The Alphabet of Lost Order. The title refers to the world, nature and landscape that we have lost through our own actions and to the language that drove us out of the world as we overpowered it. Making that loss visible moves him in his work.

Lex ter Braak studied Dutch and comparative literature and then attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. In addition to being an artist, Ter Braak is known as an organizer, curator and former director of De Vleeshal, Middelburg (NL); Fonds BKVB (NL) and the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht (NL). He was also a lecturer at the Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (NL). Since 2015, he has focused primarily on his life as an artist and writer.

Daylight falls in through large sheets of porous paper. The colors applied to the scooped paper pulp gain intensity from the light making its way inside. Lex ter Braak (1950, Netherlands) created the works in response to his nature walks. Walking, according to Ter Braak, is a form of absorption in the world beyond the image and language we have formed to organize the world around us. What remains when we indulge in a walk is nature as experience.

Lex ter Braak brings together his work under the umbrella title The Alphabet of Lost Order. The title refers to the world, nature and landscape that we have lost through our own actions and to the language that drove us out of the world as we overpowered it. Making that loss visible moves him in his work.

Lex ter Braak studied Dutch and comparative literature and then attended the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam. In addition to being an artist, Ter Braak is known as an organizer, curator and former director of De Vleeshal, Middelburg (NL); Fonds BKVB (NL) and the Jan van Eyck Academy, Maastricht (NL). He was also a lecturer at the Rietveld Academy and the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (NL). Since 2015, he has focused primarily on his life as an artist and writer.

In Tölpel (2010) by Jonas Brandt (1981, Germany), humanity is reduced to its essence. A fragile porcelain portrait rests on a wooden pedestal that crumbles in various colors like a mousetrap. The sculpture evokes playful associations with the works of Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancuși.

Jonas Brandt’s painted wooden sculptures seem to have stepped out of another reality. Both his choice of materials and colors remind us of a world of toy figures, but unlike toys, these figures appear to have a purpose. They are not a blank slate; they carry their own story and history. These sculptures, influenced by Romanian culture, have a quiet and poetic character, not easily understood at first glance.

Jonas Brandt studied at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (DE). His work was exhibited at, among others, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (DE) and is held in various collections.

The main theme in the oeuvre of Hans Broek (1965, Netherlands) is the representation of the landscape. The painter draws inspiration from photos he takes during his worldwide peregrinations, often in locations where history has left its mark. His first landscapes from the early nineties, such as Kronstadt (1993), are expressionist canvases with generous impasto and were inspired by travel memories. Strength combined with a certain sprezzatura.

Characteristic of Broek’s paintings are not only the sober figurative style and technical mastery but also the light, enigmatic presence of places and objects that are nonetheless depicted clearly and concretely. In this, Broek can be seen as a kindred spirit of Edward Hopper, whose depictions of deserted gas stations or lonely lighthouses convey a similar sense of eerie stillness.

Hans Broek lives and works in Muiden (NL). He studied at the Utrecht School of the Arts, was a resident at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam (1991–1993), and has lived alternately in Los Angeles, New York, and Senegal. His work has been exhibited at venues such as De Pont, Tilburg (NL); Gasunie, Groningen (NL); Hermitage, Amsterdam (NL); and the Victoria Miro Gallery in London (UK). Broek’s paintings are part of collections at institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL); De Pont, Tilburg (NL) and the Dordrechts Museum (NL).

Koos Buster (1991, Netherlands) elevates everyday objects into cheerful and accessible works of art. The decorative plates on the wall come from the series “Decorative Plates of Almost Everything I Don’t Like.” It is an ongoing series. On these plates, we see a cruise ship sailing behind Amsterdam Central Station and a tractor, both painted in blue, hinting at the traditional Delft Blue.

Literally everything becomes art in Buster’s jubilantly tactile world. Combining tongue-in-cheek humor with extraordinary craftsmanship, Buster’s life-sized ceramic renditions of mundane objects cause us to reflect upon what constitutes art in much the same way as Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp before him. Starting from sketches, Buster works towards a ceramic finale in which he seeks to retain the messiness and innocence of his initial drawings; qualities abundantly present in his work’s finger-marked attributes, bearing witness to the kinetic energy of their maker.

Koos Buster lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). He graduated in 2018 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam (NL). His work has been exhibited at, among others, Museum MORE, Gorssel (NL); Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (NL); Stichting Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam (NL); and the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (NL).

Koos Buster (1991, Netherlands) elevates everyday objects into cheerful and accessible works of art. The decorative plates on the wall come from the series “Decorative Plates of Almost Everything I Don’t Like.” It is an ongoing series. On these plates, we see a cruise ship sailing behind Amsterdam Central Station and a tractor, both painted in blue, hinting at the traditional Delft Blue.

Literally everything becomes art in Buster’s jubilantly tactile world. Combining tongue-in-cheek humor with extraordinary craftsmanship, Buster’s life-sized ceramic renditions of mundane objects cause us to reflect upon what constitutes art in much the same way as Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp before him. Starting from sketches, Buster works towards a ceramic finale in which he seeks to retain the messiness and innocence of his initial drawings; qualities abundantly present in his work’s finger-marked attributes, bearing witness to the kinetic energy of their maker.

Koos Buster lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). He graduated in 2018 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam (NL). His work has been exhibited at, among others, Museum MORE, Gorssel (NL); Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (NL); Stichting Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam (NL); and the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (NL).

Koos Buster (1991, Netherlands) elevates everyday objects into cheerful and accessible works of art. On the wall, we find a world peace button. It can be seen as a reversed ‘red button’, anyone who desires world peace only needs to press the button.

Literally everything becomes art in Buster’s jubilantly tactile world. Combining tongue-in-cheek humor with extraordinary craftsmanship, Buster’s life-sized ceramic renditions of mundane objects cause us to reflect upon what constitutes art in much the same way as Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp before him. Starting from sketches, Buster works towards a ceramic finale in which he seeks to retain the messiness and innocence of his initial drawings; qualities abundantly present in his work’s finger-marked attributes, bearing witness to the kinetic energy of their maker.

Koos Buster lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). He graduated in 2018 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam (NL). His work has been exhibited at, among others, Museum MORE, Gorssel (NL); Museum Beelden aan Zee, The Hague (NL); Stichting Beeldende Kunst, Amsterdam (NL) and the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (NL).

Something seems to be materializing from the black cover of a book, like a genie from a bottle. Jonathan Callan (1961, United Kingdom) hammered the map of Antarctica out of the book More Secrets of the Dead by Hugh Miller. The English explorer Robert Scott still lies buried there in the ice with his unfortunate crew. Climate change is changing the shape of Antarctica unrecognizably. The ice caps are melting, and although snow continues to fall it cannot keep pace with the melting of the glaciers.

Callan plays in his work with the limitations of language and uses text – books, cards and photographs – as his most important source material. Callan grew up in the strongly literary British culture, in which he developed his own fascination for the expression of things beyond description in language. His sometimes violent, often obsessive way of working – in which the source material is torn, reconstructed and sometimes almost destroyed – emphasizes the physical aspect of the object and gives the work a meaning that transcends language.

Jonathan Callan lives and works in London (UK). He graduated from Goldsmiths College (1984) and the Slade School of Fine Arts (1990). Callan’s work is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York (US); The British Museum, London (UK); the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (UK); The High Museum, Atlanta (US) and the Leopold-Hoesch Museum, Düren (DE).

In the timeless interiors of Mathieu Cherkit (1982, France), no corner remains unseen. His paintings transport the viewer into the still life of a house, in which only modern details can tell you in which time the works are set. No people are present, but the prominent objects placed in the picture make their presence palpable.

The subject of Cherkit’s paintings is his family home outside Paris; a mansion in an old school, where he lives with his wife and son. They are intimate glimpses that go beyond the everyday. In thick layers of oil or watercolor, Cherkit paints the various rooms of his house full of antiques, staircases and a lush green garden around the house. Using varied perspectives, abstract elements and his signature saturated color palette, he constructs spaces that feel both familiar and dreamlike, as if memory and imagination intertwine.

Mathieu Cherkit lives and works in Saint-Cloud (FR). He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Nantes (FR) and the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst, Leipzig (DE). His work has been shown at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (FR); Centre d’Art Contemporain de Lacoux (FR) and the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Saint-Cloud (FR).

In the timeless interiors of Mathieu Cherkit (1982, France), no corner remains unseen. His paintings transport the viewer into the still life of a house, in which only modern details can tell you in which time the works are set. No people are present, but the prominent objects placed in the picture make their presence palpable.

The subject of Cherkit’s paintings is his family home outside Paris; a mansion in an old school, where he lives with his wife and son. They are intimate glimpses that go beyond the everyday. In thick layers of oil or watercolor, Cherkit paints the various rooms of his house full of antiques, staircases and a lush green garden around the house. Using varied perspectives, abstract elements and his signature saturated color palette, he constructs spaces that feel both familiar and dreamlike, as if memory and imagination intertwine.

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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (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 secondhand 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 lives and works in Suffolk, UK. She 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 (UK). She has exhibited at various venues, such as The Photographers’ Gallery in London (UK); Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool (UK); Museum Arnhem (NL) and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (US).

The works of Popel Coumou (1978, Netherlands) use minimal means to suggest a space. A window, a staircase or a doorway entice the viewer to think about what lies behind it. Using only paper and light, Coumou creates a feeling that seems to hover between space and time. The layers that make up this collage are images of skies. They cause natural color gradients and create an illusion of depth, while the texture in the paper remains clearly visible.

Coumou’s oeuvre consists of photographs, handmade collages, light works and miniatures. Her photo-based works question our perception of space. They explore the way our brain works; how little information is needed to fill in the gaps and create our own reality. Simple architectural compositions are transformed by Coumou into intriguing, dreamlike images that force us as viewer to question what we see.

Popel Coumou lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2004. Her work is exhibited worldwide and is included in the collections of Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL); Foam and Huis Marseille, Amsterdam (NL) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague (NL), among others. Her work has been awarded several prizes, including Foam Talent, the Mercure Culture Prize and the Hyères Photography Competition.

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

In the world depicted by Odonchimeg Davaadorj (1990, Mongolia) there are no barriers between humans, plants and animals. Everything is connected and every symbiosis produces new organisms that defy classification. Her works are peopled by creatures that are half human and half animal, plant or root system. Delicately painted in watercolor and Chinese ink, they impress on us that every living being forms part of the same ecosystem.

In the drawings, paintings, ceramic objects and three-dimensional installations of Davaadorj a leading role is played by the natural world, the female body and the use of universal stories to communicate with others. The connecting threads that Davaadorj sometimes literally uses in her drawings have a double meaning: they seem strong, but are at the same time fragile. They symbolize the invisible connections between all living beings and the importance of taking care of those connections.

Born in Mongolia, Odonchimeg Davaadorj lives and works in Paris (FR). She graduated from the Bohemian Institute in the Czech Republic and the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris-Cergy (FR). She has had solo exhibitions at such venues as Museum Folkwang, Essen (DE) and Monnaie de Paris, Paris (FR). Recently she took part in a group exhibition in MAMAC, Nice (FR); Maison Caillebotte, Yerres (FR); l’Été des Serpents, Arles (FR) and Ȃme Nue, Hamburg (DE).

A game of rugby, a group of children dancing and a magic trick with a hula hoop and a dog. In Remco Dikken’s (1981, Netherlands) paintings, the everyday becomes remarkable. Stripped of all contexts, his figures float on a background of layered paint. It is as if we are looking at the world through a porthole and pausing to focus on the details. By presenting his works in group formations, a larger story naturally unfolds from the small, personal narrative in which past and present coincide.

Dikken draws his inspiration from old photos and historical images. He is not concerned with the historical value of the photo, but rather with the feeling that the image evokes in him. By endlessly looking at his source material, an image naturally emerges that becomes the subject of his paintings. His work is characterized by simple and effective lines, layered use of color and a certain intimacy that emanates from the images.

Remco Dikken graduated from the Academy of Art & Design Enschede in 2007. He continued his education at the Constantijn Huygens Academy for Visual Arts and Design in Kampen (NL). Dikken won the Heartfund 2007 and Selection Aanzet! 2007/2008. His work has been shown in several group exhibitions.

A game of rugby, a group of children dancing and a magic trick with a hula hoop and a dog. In Remco Dikken’s (1981, Netherlands) paintings, the everyday becomes remarkable. Stripped of all contexts, his figures float on a background of layered paint. It is as if we are looking at the world through a porthole and pausing to focus on the details. By presenting his works in group formations, a larger story naturally unfolds from the small, personal narrative in which past and present coincide.

Dikken draws his inspiration from old photos and historical images. He is not concerned with the historical value of the photo, but rather with the feeling that the image evokes in him. By endlessly looking at his source material, an image naturally emerges that becomes the subject of his paintings. His work is characterized by simple and effective lines, layered use of color and a certain intimacy that emanates from the images.

Remco Dikken graduated from the Academy of Art & Design Enschede in 2007. He continued his education at the Constantijn Huygens Academy for Visual Arts and Design in Kampen (NL). Dikken won the Heartfund 2007 and Selection Aanzet! 2007/2008. His work has been shown in several group exhibitions.

A game of rugby, a group of children dancing and a magic trick with a hula hoop and a dog. In Remco Dikken’s (1981, Netherlands) paintings, the everyday becomes remarkable. Stripped of all contexts, his figures float on a background of layered paint. It is as if we are looking at the world through a porthole and pausing to focus on the details. By presenting his works in group formations, a larger story naturally unfolds from the small, personal narrative in which past and present coincide.

Dikken draws his inspiration from old photos and historical images. He is not concerned with the historical value of the photo, but rather with the feeling that the image evokes in him. By endlessly looking at his source material, an image naturally emerges that becomes the subject of his paintings. His work is characterized by simple and effective lines, layered use of color and a certain intimacy that emanates from the images.

Remco Dikken graduated from the Academy of Art & Design Enschede in 2007. He continued his education at the Constantijn Huygens Academy for Visual Arts and Design in Kampen (NL). Dikken won the Heartfund 2007 and Selection Aanzet! 2007/2008. His work has been shown in several group exhibitions.

A game of rugby, a group of children dancing and a magic trick with a hula hoop and a dog. In Remco Dikken’s (1981, Netherlands) paintings, the everyday becomes remarkable. Stripped of all contexts, his figures float on a background of layered paint. It is as if we are looking at the world through a porthole and pausing to focus on the details. By presenting his works in group formations, a larger story naturally unfolds from the small, personal narrative in which past and present coincide.

Dikken draws his inspiration from old photos and historical images. He is not concerned with the historical value of the photo, but rather with the feeling that the image evokes in him. By endlessly looking at his source material, an image naturally emerges that becomes the subject of his paintings. His work is characterized by simple and effective lines, layered use of color and a certain intimacy that emanates from the images.

Remco Dikken graduated from the Academy of Art & Design Enschede in 2007. He continued his education at the Constantijn Huygens Academy for Visual Arts and Design in Kampen (NL). Dikken won the Heartfund 2007 and Selection Aanzet! 2007/2008. His work has been shown in several group exhibitions.

On a rugged mountain ridge in the Kurdish uplands of Hani, children gather to play and dance together, telling anecdotes about cows that suddenly vanish and birds that always fly back. For her film installation Birds Fly Back (2022), Jiyan Düyü (1995, Netherlands) made a journey to the ancestral region of her Kurdish family in Turkey. The film is part of a long Kurdish tradition centered on a melancholy longing for the homeland and the Kurdish landscape, often told from a child’s perspective.

Family ties and relationships are the driving themes in the films of Jiyan Düyü. Her work is an ongoing exploration into her roots and her way of processing and placing the events that have formed her life. Her intuitive approach to filming allows her characters to show their most human side, in spite of the presence of the camera.

Jiyan Düyü graduated in 2022 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL). Her final film Birds Fly Back (2022) won the Lakeside Collection Award and the Wildcard of the Nederlands Filmfonds. She combined these prizes to create the film installation Heaven Must Be Like This (2023), which was shown at Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen (NL). Since 2023 Düyü has been studying at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main (DE).

Josquin van Elburg (2002, Netherlands) developed a work especially for Beyond These Walls in which three disciplines come together: painting, mural and collage. In the mural we see Van Elburg’s view of the creation of the world, in which the presence of a woman is central. The collages depict contemporary representations of women, with the emphasis on their individuality. The painting is already in itself a pastiche. The woman, whose gaze drifts somewhere between shyness and melancholy, symbolizes youth.

Van Elburg’s work builds a bridge between the past and the present. He combines elements from classical Greek art, the Renaissance and the modernist tradition of Cézanne and Matisse with cinematic references such as Fellini and Antonioni. The resulting fusion creates a rich new visual language that explores the harmony and dissonance of the human experience.

Josquin van Elburg graduated from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem in 2024, where he embraced a rigorous practice inspired by Rodin’s advice to Rilke: ‘Work, always work.’ Van Elburg’s artistic journey to ArtEZ broadened his horizons to sculpture and costume making, but his deep affinity with painting remained central. In the same year, he was selected for the annual Best of Graduates exhibition at Galerie Ron Mandos. His work has since been purchased by private collectors.

In White, white, too much white (2020) by Stijn Elshuis (1991, Netherlands), worlds converge. The legacy of Greek antiquity, generally considered the cradle of Western civilization, is nowadays diluted into torsos made of plaster or plastic that you can find at garden centers or, as happened to Elshuis, in the refrigerator of a student dorm. In the sculpture, the reference to De Stijl is unmistakable. Elshuis complements the assemblage with an African mask to counterbalance our Western Eurocentric view of history.

In his multimedia work, Elshuis examines how we deal with our history. His experimental assemblages reveal the friction that our view of history creates, with the aim of broadening the view of the times we live in. To this end, he examines history, anthropology, philosophy and images he finds in archives, the media or the public space.

Stijn Elshuis graduated from the University of the Arts Utrecht (NL) and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and Sint-Lucas Academy, both in Antwerp (BE). His work has been exhibited at, among others, the Photo Museum Antwerp (BE); Museum Het Belfort, Sluis (NL); Felix Meritus, Amsterdam (NL) and is included in various private and corporate collections.

Titia Frieling (1944, Netherlands) created a refined embroidery inspired by the monumental mural her son, Gijs Frieling, painted at the AkzoNobel Art Space in 2021. Frieling’s embroidery serves as a lasting memory of this mural, a tribute carefully and lovingly created by hand, stitch by stitch. In the foreground, we see a fairytale-like shore of the Bosphorus with graceful plants and flowers. Within this scene, a charming deer grazes and a procession of turtles carries a burning candle on their shells. On the left and right, dark groups of trees form curtains, like those of a stage.

Titia Frieling lives in Amsterdam. She studied law in Leiden. Later in life, Frieling attended the evening program at the Rietveld Academy to study interior architecture. For many years, she worked as head of organization at De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam and organized numerous exhibitions. In 2023, her work was displayed alongside that of Gijs Frieling at No Limits! Art Castle, Amsterdam (NL). In 2017, Frieling was awarded the Honorary Medal of Almere for her volunteer work on various projects.

The front cover of a book displays a painted detail of shining hair. Thin layers of oil paint and brushstrokes that seem to dissolve into pixels portray the undulating effect of the curling tongs. The work forms part of a mini-series in which Louise Giovanelli (1993, United Kingdom) zooms in on glamorous subjects such as stage curtains and the waved wigs and shimmering blouses of film stars. Each work sparkles, bringing home to us the transience of the film world, from which it has been taken.

The delicate, almost luminous works of Giovanelli breathe new life into historical subjects from the canon of Western art. By means of interconnected series Giovanelli weaves together an oeuvre that is close to her heart. Her subjects, which she chooses in the first place for their formal qualities – composition, color, texture – dissolve before our eyes into carefully constructed structures and patterns. For Giovanelli, painting provides a visual slowing-down, and viewing her works seems almost meditative.

Louise Giovanelli lives and works in Manchester (UK). She completed her postgraduate studies at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main (DE) in 2020, after obtaining her bachelor's degree from the Manchester School of Art (UK) in 2015. Her work has been exhibited at Moon Grove, Manchester (UK); Warrington Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester (UK) and The FLAG Art Foundation, New York (US).

In Library by the Cuban-American artist Anthony Goicolea (1971, United States), two car headlamps gleam through a thick layer of snow. Behind the windscreen, wiped clear of snow, we see no driver, only a pile of books. The image defies all logic, and yet our gaze remains fixed on it.

Goicolea is known for his powerful, almost melancholy imagery, in which themes such as personal history, cultural traditions and detachment are central. He gained international renown with his staged photos of alienating landscapes: dreamlike forests and pitiless urban environments. Landscapes where no human is to be seen, but where traces of human presence are discernible. The images bring about a feeling of displacement, in which human beings seem alienated both from each other and from the natural environment of which they form a part.

Anthony Goicolea lives and works in New York (US). He graduated from the Pratt Institute of Art in New York. His work is exhibited throughout the world and features in public and private collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (US); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (US); and The Museum of Modern Art, New York (US).

Is This Forever (2010) is a combination of a painting and a sculpture by Anthony Goicolea (1971, United States). A portrait of an adolescent symbolizing youthful curiosity, with his hands entangled in a web of threads, stands on a wobbly pile of books held together with paint and glue. Those books − channels through which history, knowledge and memories come to us − are passed from one person to another as a trail of knowledge that connects disparate groups of people.

Goicolea is known for his powerful, almost wistful imagery that focuses on themes of personal history, cultural traditions and detachment. He gained international acclaim for his staged photographs of alienating landscapes: dreamy forests and unforgiving urban environments. The images create a sense of displacement, in which humans seem to be alienated both from others and from the natural environment of which they are a part.

Anthony Goicolea lives and works in New York (US). He studied Drawing and Painting at the University of Georgia (US) and pursued a Master of Fine Arts at the Pratt Institute of Art, New York (US). His work has been exhibited widely, including at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago (US); International Center of Photography, New York (US); The Groninger Museum (NL) and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (ES).

Sophie von Hellermann (Munich, 1975) paints as if questioning: is this a film star or an icon? Here, jet-setter Bianca Jagger steps off the plane. Small in stature, but large in appearance and, with her cigar and cowboy hat, an unmistakable icon of the 1970s. Von Hellermann’s enormous painting is painted in an inquisitive and detached manner.

This work is typical of her oeuvre, in which icons from glamour magazines and fashionable life often play a leading role. She puts them on canvas with soft colors and strokes, as if she wants to offer contrast to these strong figures with their eventful lives by painting them in woolly and fading style. It is as if Von Hellermann thus wants to make it clear that they too are simply human, and their fame is not everlasting.

Sophie von Hellermann lives and works in London and Margate (UK). She studied at the Art Academy, Düsseldorf, and the Royal College of Art, London (UK). Her work has been exhibited at Aacher Kunstverein (DE); Elmhurst Art Museum, Berlin (DE); Bonner Kunstverein (DE); Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp (BE); and Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR). In 2006, she created a mural at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (US).

The series Fragments of Garden (2021) by Arjan van Helmond (1971, Netherlands) immerses the viewer in a nocturnal garden. Paintings mounted on a panoramic drawing loom up like snapshots in the dark. Van Helmond visited the paradisal garden of his parents-in-law in Lebanon in the winter, when the place was dormant but filled with the fragrance of ripening oranges. Built up of thin layers of gouache and acrylic paint, these paintings function as time capsules containing recorded  memories.

Van Helmond’s work prompts us to consider the meaning of the objects, places and spaces in our direct surroundings. He prefers to paint unspectacular, even banal aspects of daily life: a seascape, a garden, the house we live in, the carpet under our feet, souvenirs and ornaments in the cabinet. Images which, without being explicitly narrative, say something about our history, culture, clichés and everyday human behavior.

Arjan van Helmond studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work is exhibited among other places at Museum MORE, Gorssel; Museum Kranenburgh and Lucebert House, Bergen; Museum Het Domein, Sittard and the Dordrechts Museum. His work is further held in various collections, including the Saatchi Gallery, the Nederlandse Bank, Chadha Art Collection, Schunck and The Schorr Family Collection. In 2018 he was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prize.

The series Fragments of Garden (2021) by Arjan van Helmond (1971, Netherlands) immerses the viewer in a nocturnal garden. Paintings mounted on a panoramic drawing loom up like snapshots in the dark. Van Helmond visited the paradisal garden of his parents-in-law in Lebanon in the winter, when the place was dormant but filled with the fragrance of ripening oranges. Built up of thin layers of gouache and acrylic paint, these paintings function as time capsules containing recorded  memories.

Van Helmond’s work prompts us to consider the meaning of the objects, places and spaces in our direct surroundings. He prefers to paint unspectacular, even banal aspects of daily life: a seascape, a garden, the house we live in, the carpet under our feet, souvenirs and ornaments in the cabinet. Images which, without being explicitly narrative, say something about our history, culture, clichés and everyday human behavior.

Arjan van Helmond studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work is exhibited among other places at Museum MORE, Gorssel; Museum Kranenburgh and Lucebert House, Bergen; Museum Het Domein, Sittard and the Dordrechts Museum. His work is further held in various collections, including the Saatchi Gallery, the Nederlandse Bank, Chadha Art Collection, Schunck and The Schorr Family Collection. In 2018 he was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prize.

The series Fragments of Garden (2021) by Arjan van Helmond (1971, Netherlands) immerses the viewer in a nocturnal garden. Paintings mounted on a panoramic drawing loom up like snapshots in the dark. Van Helmond visited the paradisal garden of his parents-in-law in Lebanon in the winter, when the place was dormant but filled with the fragrance of ripening oranges. Built up of thin layers of gouache and acrylic paint, these paintings function as time capsules containing recorded  memories.

Van Helmond’s work prompts us to consider the meaning of the objects, places and spaces in our direct surroundings. He prefers to paint unspectacular, even banal aspects of daily life: a seascape, a garden, the house we live in, the carpet under our feet, souvenirs and ornaments in the cabinet. Images which, without being explicitly narrative, say something about our history, culture, clichés and everyday human behavior.

Arjan van Helmond studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. His work is exhibited among other places at Museum MORE, Gorssel; Museum Kranenburgh and Lucebert House, Bergen; Museum Het Domein, Sittard and the Dordrechts Museum. His work is further held in various collections, including the Saatchi Gallery, the Nederlandse Bank, Chadha Art Collection, Schunck and The Schorr Family Collection. In 2018 he was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prize.

Interior No. 188 (2003) invites you to take a seat. In the orange-pink living room, everything comes together through the line of a thick white brush that traces all the outer edges like a child’s drawing. Anton Henning (1964, Germany) is known for his space-filling installations of interiors in which hand-painted furniture, murals and paintings become a world unto themselves. The walls of this room are adorned by a portrait of nineteenth-century painter Courbet and The Dance (1909) by Matisse.

Henning creates paintings, drawings, installations, photographs, collages and objects. His oeuvre reveals a world on its own; an eclectic universe in which diverse techniques, movements and disciplines intertwine. He draws inspiration from photography, film, theater, pop culture, art history and architecture. A common motif in Henning’s work is the Hennling, a graceful line that can appear in the form of an object, decoration or as jewelry.

Anton Henning lives and works in Berlin and Manker (DE). He is a self-taught artist. Henning’s work is included in collections such as the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL); De Pont in Tilburg (NL); National Museum of Art in Osaka (JP); LACMA in Los Angeles (US); Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main (DE); and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles (US).

Panchromatic (small proof) (2001) by John Hilliard (1945, United Kingdom) forces us into the corner of a small room. In the grainy photographic print, an electrical outlet and an air vent can just be detected. The outer edge of saturated colors transforms the dark grey room into an abstract composition. Panchromatic literally means ‘all colors’ and refers to a sensor that combines the visible spectrum with non-visible wavelengths, such as ultraviolet or infrared.

John Hilliard began his career as a sculptor, but soon switched to photography. In his carefully constructed scenes, the photographic process itself is made the subject. He combines close-ups, mirroring, multiple lighting or change of focus, all in a single image. His themes relate to film and society, and a sense of fear and violence are covert but strong. Hilliard forces the viewer into the role of a detective, who must unravel the secret lurking in the background.

John Hilliard studied at Saint Martin’s School of Art, London (UK). His work has been widely exhibited at venues including Tate Modern, London (UK); Seoul Museum of Art (KR); Centre George Pompidou, Paris (FR) and The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (UK). The work is part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York (US) and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (UK).

Snæfell, a remote mountain in Iceland, is a magical place. Owing to the kaleidoscopic skies above the summit and the constantly changing colors of the surrounding landscape, the mountain is a popular attraction. Skies over Snæfell, a light installation by Allard van Hoorn (1968, Netherlands) visualizes these changing skies. A computer that continuously searches the internet for images of Snæfell controls the installation of 1536 rainbow-colored LED lights in changing tints. The internet images are indexed and the skies and mountain are separated from each other with special software. This mysterious work by Van Hoorn shows the abstract reality of the skies above Snæfell via internet. Van Hoorn is a sound, installation and performance artist. His works can be regarded as choreographies for the urban environment, which explore our relationship to (public) space and nature.

Skies over Snæfell came into being as a collaboration between Allard van Hoorn, the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, de Appel, and the Mondriaan Fund.

Allard Van Hoorn was artist in residence at ISCP in Brooklyn, New York. His work has been exhibited at home and abroad, including at Gasworks, London, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Tate St. Ives, Cornwall and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

The works Tall, Dark & Elegant (2017) and Big Green Shiny Sculpture (2016) by Hans Hovy (1953, Netherlands) are part of the Glassobs series. The bulbous, lumpy shapes in bottle green and deep purple were blown under Hovy’s direction at Tetterode and are so recognizable and personal that it seems as though Hovy himself breathed life into them: ‘I think of something alive when I see my works being blown.’ And indeed, the vases appear to be truly animated living figures—transparent and stable, yet with an unmistakably strong character.

Hovy creates installations, sculptures, drawings, as well as rugs and jewelry. He effortlessly switches between different disciplines, choosing the medium that best suits his question or exploration. Hovy’s work often lies at the intersection of contrasts; playful and strict at the same time, and hard and heavy materials that appear soft and light.

Hans Hovy graduated from the Academy for Fine Art Education, Amsterdam, and De Ateliers ‘63, Haarlem (NL). His work has been exhibited at, among others, Kunstmuseum De Haag (NL); Museum Jan Cunen, Oss (NL); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL); Rijksmuseum Twente (NL) and Saatchi Gallery, London (UK).

The works Tall, Dark & Elegant (2017) and Big Green Shiny Sculpture (2016) by Hans Hovy (1953, Netherlands) are part of the Glassobs series. The bulbous, lumpy shapes in bottle green and deep purple were blown under Hovy’s direction at Tetterode and are so recognizable and personal that it seems as though Hovy himself breathed life into them: ‘I think of something alive when I see my works being blown.’ And indeed, the vases appear to be truly animated living figures—transparent and stable, yet with an unmistakably strong character.

Hovy creates installations, sculptures, drawings, as well as rugs and jewelry. He effortlessly switches between different disciplines, choosing the medium that best suits his question or exploration. Hovy’s work often lies at the intersection of contrasts; playful and strict at the same time, and hard and heavy materials that appear soft and light.

Hans Hovy graduated from the Academy for Fine Art Education, Amsterdam, and De Ateliers ‘63, Haarlem (NL). His work has been exhibited at, among others, Kunstmuseum De Haag (NL); Museum Jan Cunen, Oss (NL); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL); Rijksmuseum Twente (NL) and Saatchi Gallery, London (UK).

The carpet Pink Happy Sausages (2009) by Hans Hovy (1953, Netherlands) features a playful pattern of oversized sausages on strings, seemingly going in all directions, which enhances the view from above. With its soft and colorful strength, this carpet adds an extra dimension to the salon decor of this room.

Hovy creates installations, sculptures, drawings, as well as carpets and jewelry. He effortlessly switches between different disciplines, choosing the medium that best suits his question or exploration. Hovy’s work often lies at the intersection of contrasts; playful and strict at the same time, and hard and heavy materials that appear soft and light.

Hans Hovy graduated from the Academy for Fine Art Education, Amsterdam, and the Ateliers ‘63, Haarlem (NL). His work has been exhibited at, among others, Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL); Museum Jan Cunen, Oss (NL); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL); Rijksmuseum Twente (NL) and Saatchi Gallery, London (UK).

Sharp lines define the contours of a space, leaving us uncertain whether we are inside or outside of it. There is a brooding atmosphere in Model Car Graveyard (2023) by Hettie Inniss (1999, United Kingdom). The layered and splintered nature of the image is achieved by subtly divergent layers of paint that gleam through the image like ghostly apparitions; the trace of a fence, the suggestion of a shrubbery behind it, a cord dangling deliberately but mysteriously from a window frame.

‘Unlocking a lost memory – often triggered by a sight, sound or smell – can be intense, like you’ve been whiplashed into a different timeline,’ says Inniss. Her paintings are the experiences of this sort of involuntary memory, solidified into paint. Moments at which our senses are stimulated and the mind takes us to familiar or sinister places. Paint can slip away and fade, assert itself in a work loudly or in an undertone. What does a memory taste like, how does it sound, how can paint record these feelings?

Hettie Inniss lives and works in London (UK). She was awarded the Sir Frank Bowling Scholarship in 2022 and gained her MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, London (UK) in 2023. In 2023 she was asked by the Tate Collective to create a work of art in response to a work in their collection.

Esther Jiskoot (1963, Netherlands) creates sculptures in which she combines various materials with glass beads. She strings the beads into long threads, which she then crochets or knits and weaves with materials such as ceramics, cast aluminum, or glass. The organic nature of the sculptures evokes human or animal anatomy, exposing a vulnerable and imperfect physicality. The titles are an inseparable part of Jiskoot’s work. ‘They are part of its sensory aspect,’ she says herself, and are essential for understanding the work.

The three different works by Jiskoot in this exhibition not only demonstrate her ability to imbue diverse materials and formats with an equally powerful poetic expression, but they also, in an unfathomable way, stimulate the imagination of the viewer.

Esther Jiskoot lives and works in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at various locations, including the National Glass Museum, Leerdam (NL); Kunstenlab, Deventer (NL); Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch (NL); W139, Amsterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL) and Bornholm Art Museum (DK).

Suntrap VIII by Esther Jiskoot (1963, the Netherlands) is part of a larger series of sculptures with which she seeks to capture the luminescent beauty of the sun’s rays. Rendered in a blaze of yellow, Suntrap VIII bears witness to Jiskoot’s practice of integrating divergent materials with glass beads, which she strings on long threads before crocheting or knitting them into various forms. Titles are integral to Jiskoot’s work. They “form part of the sensory aspect thereof” she says, and also the key to understanding them. This work, resembling an old fashioned hunter’s trap, the ribs of which are formed by (or maybe infused with) rays of sunlight, embodies both the promise and impossibility of harnessing the power of one of nature’s most majestic natural resources: the sun.

The three different works by Jiskoot in this exhibition not only demonstrate her ability to imbue diverse materials and formats with an equally powerful poetic expression, but they also, in an unfathomable way, stimulate the imagination of the viewer.

Esther Jiskoot lives and works in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at various locations, including the National Glass Museum, Leerdam (NL); Kunstenlab, Deventer (NL); Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch (NL); W139, Amsterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL) and Bornholm Art Museum (DK).

Esther Jiskoot (1963, Netherlands) creates sculptures in which she combines various materials with glass beads. She strings the beads into long threads, which she then crochets or knits and weaves with materials such as ceramics, cast aluminum, or glass. The organic nature of the sculptures evokes human or animal anatomy, exposing a vulnerable and imperfect physicality. The titles are an inseparable part of Jiskoot’s work. ‘They are part of its sensory aspect,’ she says herself, and are essential for understanding the work.

The three different works by Jiskoot in this exhibition not only demonstrate her ability to imbue diverse materials and formats with an equally powerful poetic expression, but they also, in an unfathomable way, stimulate the imagination of the viewer.

Esther Jiskoot lives and works in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at various locations, including the National Glass Museum, Leerdam (NL); Kunstenlab, Deventer (NL); Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch (NL); W139, Amsterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL) and Bornholm Art Museum (DK).

The idea of an infinite flow of information is usually associated with the computer and with the rise of online culture. But Job Koelewijn (1962, Netherlands) wonders whether we are blindly fixated on the digital highway. After all, the abundant flow of information started centuries ago with the introduction of the book. Within Job Koelewijn’s artistry, book, literature and language are all-important. Oneindige Boekenkast (Infinate Bookcase) (2006) symbolizes the infinity of knowledge and the boundless power of books.

Koelewijn’s multifaceted art carries a certain fragility. In his work, he incorporates not only text but also senses and materials associated with transience: scents, touch, sound, and food. By using these materials, an experience can be extended or intensified. His works are often conceptual gestures in which opposites are introduced and resolved in an intimate manner.

Job Koelewijn lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). He was a resident at PS1 in New York (US) and won the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Art in 2006. His work has been widely exhibited, including at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (NL); Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL); Kiasma, Helsinki (FI); CEAC, Xiamen (CN); Kunstmuseum Luzern (CH); M HKA, Antwerp (BE) and two editions of the Venice Biennale (IT). His work is included in several prominent art collections.

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.

Krijn de Koning lives and works in Amsterdam. He was a resident at De Ateliers and graduated from the Rietveld Academie (NL) and the Institut Des Hautes Etudes En Art Plastique (FR). His work has been exhibited in various places including De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (NL); De Vleeshal, Middelburg (NL); Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL), and FRAC Lorraine, Metz (FR). In 2007, he received the Sikkens Prize.

Krijn de Koning (1963, Netherlands) is concerned with our experience of architectural space. De Koning usually makes site-specific works in museums, galleries and public spaces, that investigate the characteristics of a particular space. In addition De Koning makes sculptures, such as Box (2019), a brightly colored architectonic structure that seems to fit together like a Rubik’s cube.

‘My work is always about looking, about how to draw attention to things. I work from the conviction that a space has both a physical and a mental impact,’ says De Koning. His oeuvre is distinguished by its strong visual language of rectangular architectural forms and colored surfaces. His work is best described as sculptural, but possesses the qualities of both painting and architecture.

Krijn de Koning lives and works in Amsterdam. He was a resident at De Ateliers and graduated from the Rietveld Academie (NL) and the Institut Des Hautes Etudes En Art Plastique (FR). His work has been exhibited in various places including De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (NL); Vleeshal, Middelburg (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL); Museum Booijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam (NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL), and FRAC Lorraine, Metz (FR). In 2007, he received the Sikkens Prize.

Work, (Office Blocks) (2012) by Krijn de Koning (1963, Netherlands) consists of spatial elements in bright colors that seem to open a space and simultaneously limit it. Although the title suggests otherwise, they are unusable constructions. The simple collection of boxes shows how shape, volume, color and balance arrange themselves in an arrangement that soon looks architectural. De Koning once said: ‘organizing space is also framing attention. The sculpture guides our gaze and shows the impact of color on our experience of space.’

Krijn de Koning is known for his temporary installations in museums, galleries and public spaces, in which the experience of space is central. His site-specific interventions are recognizable by their strong visual language of rectangular architectural forms and colored surfaces. His work is best described as sculptural but incorporates the qualities of both painting and architecture.

Krijn de Koning lives and works in Amsterdam. He was a resident at De Ateliers and graduated from the Rietveld Academie (NL) and the Institut Des Hautes Etudes En Art Plastique (FR). His work has been exhibited in various places including De Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam (NL); De Vleeshal, Middelburg (NL); Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL); Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL), and FRAC Lorraine, Metz (FR). In 2007, he received the Sikkens Prize.

You can wander endlessly in the room dividers of Fiona Lutjenhuis (1991, Netherlands). In the dizzying stack of images, a family portrait of the artist unfolds. Using casein and raw pigments, Lutjenhuis painted a dream in which her sisters appear, along with a scene of her parents watching the eclipse in their backyard. The room where she sits with her sisters is filled to the brim with bonsai trees, which seem to continue growing while their gazes are focused on the Mudras on the table.

Lutjenhuis creates illustrations, publications, paintings, and animations in which she makes visible the religious heritage of her youth: from installations to artist books, and from commissioned works to self-initiated projects. Her speculative visual language fits seamlessly into contemporary discourse on a post-positivist society. In each image, the humor and courage required to lose oneself without prejudice in other worlds can be seen.

Fiona Lutjenhuis lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the ArtEZ University of the Arts, Arnhem, and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam (NL). Her work has been exhibited at venues such as SCHUNCK, Heerlen (NL); Marres, Maastricht (NL) and the Dordrechts Museum (NL). Additionally, she has self-published a series of graphic novels and books. In 2024, she was nominated for the Scheffer Art Prize.

The textile works of Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien (1990, France/Guadeloupe/Ivory Coast) are worlds in themselves which gradually reveal themselves to the observer. Amulets, shells, copper, wire and line drawings form a cosmic whole in which more and more details can be discovered. The amulets that Messouma Manlanbien cast in clay and attached to the textiles are inspired by the iconographic dja yobuè – metal stones in the form of coins, from the Creole Akan culture.

Messouma Manlanbien sees herself as one who tells stories through materials: she works with textiles, drawings, sculptures, photography, video and installation. In her works, she brings different cultures together by combining traditional crafts with more industrial processes. By combining a variety of media, techniques and materials, she creates ‘landscapes’ in which different stories merge and generate new forms. She is strongly influenced by both the matriarchal Creole Akan culture of her father and the creative craft culture of the Guadeloupe of her mother and grandmother.

Marie-Claire Messouma Manlanbien lives and works in Paris. She studied at the École nationale supérieure d’arts de Paris- Cergy after graduating as graphic designer. Her work has been widely exhibited, at such venues as Palais de Tokyo, Paris (FR); the Institut Français, Berlin (DE); L’ Orangerie, Paris (FR); Wereldmuseum, Leiden (NL); Manifesta in Barcelona (ES) and the Venice Biennale (IT), both in 2024.

In The tiny place (2019), Monika Michalko (1982, Czech Republic) makes us part of a tiny room reduced to its essence: a table and a chair, a plant, books, a clock, and a piece of art on the wall. On the table is a blank page. The work invites us to take a seat and fill the space and the blank page with our presence.

In Monika Michalko’s paintings, the viewer moves through a world somewhere between realism and abstraction; a world full of decorative rhythms, plant-like motifs and exuberant layering. Her dreamscapes are inspired by her travels to countries such as Egypt, India, Turkey and Sri Lanka. Aspects of the folk art of her native Czech Republic also shine through unmistakably. When you take the time to wander around Michalko’s compositions, you enter a world of unusual tenderness and a seemingly carefree playfulness.

Monika Michalko lives and works in Berlin (DE). She graduated from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg under Norbert Schwontkowski. Her work has been exhibited in various galleries and art institutions, including at Kunsthalle Nurnberg; Städtisches Museum, Engen (DE); Kühlhaus, Berlin (DE); Kunsthaus, Hamburg (DE); Kunsthaus, Jesteburg; Kunsthalle Schlieren (CH) and the United Art Museum in Wuhan (CN).

Jurriaan Molenaar (1968, Netherlands) paints architecture: residential boulevards, industrial estates, banks and offices. Mostly empty spaces that offer a vista to even more emptiness. It shows a clear fascination for the work of architects such as Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe and their handling of the relationship between inside and outside.

Characteristic of the work of Jurriaan Molenaar, are paintings of empty locations combined with extremely concentrated and precise execution. The images he works with, Molenaar once said, often come from aerial photographs. Sometimes he gets them from books, but preferably he takes them himself from a hot air balloon or a sports plane. In doing so, he deliberately opts for concentration and the single-mindedness of a painting. Molenaar is not concerned with fast, shocking images, but with slow, indirect and reflective sensations - the reflection of an inner image.

Jurriaan Molenaar studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and won The Royal Award for Modern Painting. His work has been exhibited frequently and is included in various public and private collections, including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL) and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL).

The painted interiors of Lara de Moor (1969, Netherlands) are recognizable at first glance, but play with our imagination. A balloon hangs above a made-up bed with a layer of water in it determining the horizon. The human tendency to disturb the serenity of Lullaby (2012) and disrupt the image is countered by the dangerously sharp points of a fishhook from which the balloon is suspended.

De Moor sees her tranquil interiors as ‘containers’ of the lives that have been lived in them. Although people are largely absent, the traces they have left behind are visible and tangible and determine the atmosphere. De Moor works with real spaces that she photographs, stages and then manipulates while painting. Each painting feels as if we have entered someone’s inner world. By working with the power of suggestion, De Moor leaves plenty of room for the viewer’s perception.

Lara de Moor lives and works in Rotterdam (NL). She graduated in 1993 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, then completed the two-year international residence program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at Museum MORE, Gorssel (NL); Emsdettener Kunstverein, Emsdetten (DE); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL) and the fifth edition of Le Latitudini dell’Arte, Genoa (IT).

Lara de Moor (1969, Netherlands) paints interiors that play with our imagination. They are places that we find familiar, but a second glance always reveals something that defies reality. Softlock (2022) shows a corner of an imposing room bathed in pink light. Three transparent panels float suspended in mid-air. Like echoes of the doorway beside them – behind which a second space can be seen, plunged in darkness – they hang there, solidified in time.

De Moor sees her serene interiors as containers of the lives lived within them. Although people are largely absent, the traces they leave are visible and tangible, and determine the atmosphere. De Moor works by means of actual spaces that she photographs, stages and then manipulates while painting. Each painting feels as if we have entered another person’s inner world. By working with the power of suggestion, De Moor leaves full scope for the observer’s perception.

Lara de Moor lives and works in Rotterdam (NL). She graduated in 1993 at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, then completed the two-year international residence program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been exhibited at Museum MORE, Gorssel (NL); Emsdettener Kunstverein, Emsdetten (DE); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (NL) and the fifth edition of Le Latitudini dell’Arte, Genoa (IT).

Mosquitas de Luz (2019) by Ana Navas (1984, Ecuador/Venezuela) is a little gem. The work is part of a series in which Navas brings together miniature objects, jewelry and other small (worthless) accessories on a jewelry cushion to question the meaning and value of these objects. The beauty mirror has been replaced by a car mirror that captures a small domestic scene. The room contains iconic designer furniture, a generic modernist sculpture and a painting by Navas herself, raising the question of the place of modern design in our daily lives.

Topics such as transformation, assimilation and appropriation play an important role in Navas’ multimedia work. Her installations use paintings, sculptures, assemblages and video work to visualize the transformations that objects in our immediate environment undergo. The work encapsulates entire worlds and poses the question of what the relationship is between the form and function of an object, as well as the relationship between the original and the copy.

Ana Navas studied at De Ateliers, Amsterdam (NL); Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (DE, and Staatliche Akademie der Künste Karlsruhe (DE). Her work has been exhibited at, among others, SCHUNCK, Heerlen (NL); Nest, The Hague (NL); Garage, Rotterdam (NL); Cobra Museum, Amstelveen (NL); Kunstverein Göttingen (DE); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (DE); Pequod Co., Mexico City (MX) and Sagrada Mercancía, Santiago de Chile (CL).

In Perpetuum we follow the mesmerizing image of a figure that bounces through an everchanging landscape like someone on a trampoline. Air, water, earth, fire, the universe; full of bravura, the figure leaps into the unknown. Perpetuum by Jacco Olivier (1972, the Netherlands) is an ode to lightness and freedom. In all its attractiveness the work invites reflection on our own sense of freedom and its restrictions.

By endlessly adapting paintings and systematically recording the intermediate stages, painting and film merge in the oeuvre of Olivier. The photographed stages are assembled into mysterious animations - hovering between figuration and abstraction, they reveal working traces and decisions made during the painting process. Olivierʼs films are windows on seemingly simple moments, which nevertheless harbor an uncomfortable tension, a feeling that something beyond our control is about to happen or has already happened.

Jacco Olivier was resident at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited all over the world, at locations including Kunstmuseum The Hague, Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Dordrechts Museum, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Sammlung Goetz in Munchen and the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2019 Olivier won the Jeanne Oosting Prijs for figurative painting.

Untitled (1995) by Jan van de Pavert (1960, Netherlands) is reminiscent of the scale models used by architects. The sculpture evokes associations with architects such as Gerrit Rietveld, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, who strongly connect interior and exterior space. As the eye follows the corridors through and around the sculpture, it repeatedly encounters impenetrable walls and obstacles. Van de Pavert takes us playfully, so that physical space slowly converges with a mental space to wander through.

Van de Pavert began his career with spatial works composed of architectural elements isolated from their surroundings. A recurring theme in that work is the theater: the stage and the audience. Starting in 1994, he began making computer-animated films of these architectural spaces. A final translation is the mural, which would initially be embedded in his computer-manipulated spaces, but now stand on their own.

Jan van de Pavert lives and works in Rotterdam (NL). He studied at the St. Joost art academy and was a resident at Ateliers ‘63, Haarlem. His work has been shown at Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL) Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (NL) and the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterloo (NL). In 1988, Van de Pavert won the Prix de Rome.

Sunbeams pierce the leafy canopy of a densely forested area. In a tangle of foliage, we can distinguish viper’s bugloss, coffee plants and elephant’s ear. The photo installation of Michelle Piergoelam (1997, Netherlands) brings us to Brownsberg, Suriname. A shaman slices off pieces of bark and examines the flora in the overgrown land where plantations once stood. Enslaved people possessed an exhaustive knowledge of plants. By using that knowledge as a weapon, some of them managed to poison their oppressors. It is this deeply rooted knowledge of plants that enabled enslaved people to escape the brutal conditions on the plantations and to survive in the dense rainforest of Suriname.

Piergoelam tells graphic stories by means of myths, dreams and memories. In her photographs, she mixes cultural traditions, stories and landscapes. She makes conscious use of indigenous stories in order to emphasize their cultural significance and as testimony to neglected culture and history. Her work stimulates the imagination and keeps the traditional culture of storytelling alive.

Michelle Piergoelam lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Her work has been shown by such institutions as Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen (NL) and the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL). Her photographs and publications have been nominated for various awards, including the Silver Camera Prize voor Storytelling.

Sunbeams pierce the leafy canopy of a densely forested area. In a tangle of foliage, we can distinguish viper’s bugloss, coffee plants and elephant’s ear. The photo installation of Michelle Piergoelam (1997, Netherlands) brings us to Brownsberg, Suriname. A shaman slices off pieces of bark and examines the flora in the overgrown land where plantations once stood. Enslaved people possessed an exhaustive knowledge of plants. By using that knowledge as a weapon, some of them managed to poison their oppressors. It is this deeply rooted knowledge of plants that enabled enslaved people to escape the brutal conditions on the plantations and to survive in the dense rainforest of Suriname.

Piergoelam tells graphic stories by means of myths, dreams and memories. In her photographs, she mixes cultural traditions, stories and landscapes. She makes conscious use of indigenous stories in order to emphasize their cultural significance and as testimony to neglected culture and history. Her work stimulates the imagination and keeps the traditional culture of storytelling alive.

Michelle Piergoelam lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Her work has been shown by such institutions as Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen (NL) and the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL). Her photographs and publications have been nominated for various awards, including the Silver Camera Prize voor Storytelling.

Sunbeams pierce the leafy canopy of a densely forested area. In a tangle of foliage, we can distinguish viper’s bugloss, coffee plants and elephant’s ear. The photo installation of Michelle Piergoelam (1997, Netherlands) brings us to Brownsberg, Suriname. A shaman slices off pieces of bark and examines the flora in the overgrown land where plantations once stood. Enslaved people possessed an exhaustive knowledge of plants. By using that knowledge as a weapon, some of them managed to poison their oppressors. It is this deeply rooted knowledge of plants that enabled enslaved people to escape the brutal conditions on the plantations and to survive in the dense rainforest of Suriname.

Piergoelam tells graphic stories by means of myths, dreams and memories. In her photographs, she mixes cultural traditions, stories and landscapes. She makes conscious use of indigenous stories in order to emphasize their cultural significance and as testimony to neglected culture and history. Her work stimulates the imagination and keeps the traditional culture of storytelling alive.

Michelle Piergoelam lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Her work has been shown by such institutions as Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen (NL) and the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL). Her photographs and publications have been nominated for various awards, including the Silver Camera Prize voor Storytelling.

Sunbeams pierce the leafy canopy of a densely forested area. In a tangle of foliage, we can distinguish viper’s bugloss, coffee plants and elephant’s ear. The photo installation of Michelle Piergoelam (1997, Netherlands) brings us to Brownsberg, Suriname. A shaman slices off pieces of bark and examines the flora in the overgrown land where plantations once stood. Enslaved people possessed an exhaustive knowledge of plants. By using that knowledge as a weapon, some of them managed to poison their oppressors. It is this deeply rooted knowledge of plants that enabled enslaved people to escape the brutal conditions on the plantations and to survive in the dense rainforest of Suriname.

Piergoelam tells graphic stories by means of myths, dreams and memories. In her photographs, she mixes cultural traditions, stories and landscapes. She makes conscious use of indigenous stories in order to emphasize their cultural significance and as testimony to neglected culture and history. Her work stimulates the imagination and keeps the traditional culture of storytelling alive.

Michelle Piergoelam lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Her work has been shown by such institutions as Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen (NL) and the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL). Her photographs and publications have been nominated for various awards, including the Silver Camera Prize voor Storytelling.

Sunbeams pierce the leafy canopy of a densely forested area. In a tangle of foliage, we can distinguish viper’s bugloss, coffee plants and elephant’s ear. The photo installation of Michelle Piergoelam (1997, Netherlands) brings us to Brownsberg, Suriname. A shaman slices off pieces of bark and examines the flora in the overgrown land where plantations once stood. Enslaved people possessed an exhaustive knowledge of plants. By using that knowledge as a weapon, some of them managed to poison their oppressors. It is this deeply rooted knowledge of plants that enabled enslaved people to escape the brutal conditions on the plantations and to survive in the dense rainforest of Suriname.

Piergoelam tells graphic stories by means of myths, dreams and memories. In her photographs, she mixes cultural traditions, stories and landscapes. She makes conscious use of indigenous stories in order to emphasize their cultural significance and as testimony to neglected culture and history. Her work stimulates the imagination and keeps the traditional culture of storytelling alive.

Michelle Piergoelam lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Her work has been shown by such institutions as Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen (NL) and the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL). Her photographs and publications have been nominated for various awards, including the Silver Camera Prize voor Storytelling.

Sunbeams pierce the leafy canopy of a densely forested area. In a tangle of foliage, we can distinguish viper’s bugloss, coffee plants and elephant’s ear. The photo installation of Michelle Piergoelam (1997, Netherlands) brings us to Brownsberg, Suriname. A shaman slices off pieces of bark and examines the flora in the overgrown land where plantations once stood. Enslaved people possessed an exhaustive knowledge of plants. By using that knowledge as a weapon, some of them managed to poison their oppressors. It is this deeply rooted knowledge of plants that enabled enslaved people to escape the brutal conditions on the plantations and to survive in the dense rainforest of Suriname.

Piergoelam tells graphic stories by means of myths, dreams and memories. In her photographs, she mixes cultural traditions, stories and landscapes. She makes conscious use of indigenous stories in order to emphasize their cultural significance and as testimony to neglected culture and history. Her work stimulates the imagination and keeps the traditional culture of storytelling alive.

Michelle Piergoelam lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in The Hague. Her work has been shown by such institutions as Noorderlicht Fotofestival, Groningen (NL) and the Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL). Her photographs and publications have been nominated for various awards, including the Silver Camera Prize voor Storytelling.

The room depicted by Michael Raedecker (1963, Netherlands) lies somewhere between a real and a mental space. The title suggests that the drifting embroideries floating in the room are part of a hallucinatory experience. As silent witnesses to daily life – the countless hours we’ve forgotten, the fleeting moments we wish to remember forever – Raedecker’s works take on the character of props in an endless domestic narrative.

Raedecker puts a new spin on traditional subjects in his oeuvre by applying methods and processes typically not associated with painting. His work is characterized by emptiness and minimal use of color. Since the beginning of his career as a painter, Raedecker has incorporated embroidery into his paintings. Thread and paint create a visual contrast and lend the work a sculptural quality.

Michael Raedecker studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and Goldsmiths College (UK). His work has been widely exhibited, including at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL); the Sprengel Museum, Hannover (DE); Tate Britain, London (UK); and the Galeria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (IT). Raedecker received the Royal Prize for Painting (1993), the Prix de Rome (1994), and the prestigious British John Moore Painting Prize (1999).

In The Family (2023), a patchwork of images is brought together. Klaas Rommelaere’s (1986, Belgium) tapestry is inspired by the documentary series Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (2021) by Adam Curtis and the film Naked (1993) by Mike Leigh, which explore themes such as individualism, collectivism, conspiracy theories, national myths, and artificial intelligence. The Johnny series, of which this work is a part, combines impressions from these films with personal photographs, creating a new visual narrative that seemingly connects different worlds.

Rommelaere creates embroidered tapestries and sculptures that bridge the personal and the collective. Personal experiences intertwine with visual references from cult films that have shaped the artist. The work is rich in iconic images and symbols that explore real and imagined human connections, with each piece crafted with time and care to highlight the importance of these connections in both the creation and consumption of art.

Klaas Rommelaere lives and works in Antwerp (BE). He graduated in 2013 from the Royal Conservatory of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent (BE), where he studied fashion. Since then, his work has been included in the collections of, among others, Design Museum Ghent (BE); Museum M in Leuven (BE); Museum Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges (BE); and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (NL).

Dion Rosina (1991, Netherlands) defies the rules of classical painting in his works. Regeneration (2024) combines various images like a collage. The texture of the paint also varies greatly in the different parts of the canvas. By combining line drawing, airbrush techniques and classical oil painting methods, a cryptic assemblage is created. The lotus flower at the bottom of the canvas symbolizes growth and rebirth.

Rosina’s painting practice begins with extensive research. He focuses on strange stories, mythologies and mysteries that verge on the paranormal. Important historical figures and moments also find their way into his work. The diversity of images, which may or may not reveal their essence, are first assemled into physical collages, then digitally edited, and finally painted analogously with oil paint on canvas. In the painting, the original stories transform into an even wilder narrative.

Dion Rosina made a flying start after completing his studies at the Breitner Academy in Amsterdam in 2021. In 2022, The Black Archives exhibited his work at Documenta 15, and he had his first solo museum exhibition at Kunsthal Rotterdam (NL). His work is included in various private and corporate collections, including Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht (NL), Drents Museum, Assen (NL), and Isala, Zwolle (NL). Rosina has been nominated multiple times for the Royal Prize for Painting and was among the nominees for the Volkskrant Visual Arts Prize in 2024.

The abstract paintings of Adrian Schiess (1959, Switzerland) leave much to the imagination. This diptych plays a game with the viewer, in which surface and depth alternate. Each incidence of light changes the image of the work. Full Moon (2004) offers a passage to another world and a glimpse of infinity in its reflection of the moon.

Schiess is known for his Flache Arbeiten: painted pieces of cardboard, wood or aluminum that he places flat on the floor. In his work, he explores modernist principles with which he claims to be able to ‘liberate’ the painting. He separates the painting from the wall, removes the hand of the maker from the work or allows the color of the painting to change by applying the paint to a reflective surface that changes with the space.

Adrian Schiess studied graphic design from 1976 to 1980 and received numerous awards and grants as a young artist. Schiess has had solo exhibitions at, among others, the Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (CH); Musée d’Art Moderne, St. Etienne (FR); Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana (US); Kunstmuseum Solothurn (CH); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon (FR); Kunsthalle Zürich (CH) and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (CH).

The abstract paintings of Adrian Schiess (1959, Switzerland) leave much to the imagination. This diptych plays a game with the viewer, in which surface and depth alternate. Each incidence of light changes the image of the work. Full Moon (2004) offers a passage to another world and a glimpse of infinity in its reflection of the moon.

Schiess is known for his Flache Arbeiten: painted pieces of cardboard, wood or aluminum that he places flat on the floor. In his work, he explores modernist principles with which he claims to be able to ‘liberate’ the painting. He separates the painting from the wall, removes the hand of the maker from the work or allows the color of the painting to change by applying the paint to a reflective surface that changes with the space.

Adrian Schiess studied graphic design from 1976 to 1980 and received numerous awards and grants as a young artist. Schiess has had solo exhibitions at, among others, the Bündner Kunstmuseum, Chur (CH); Musée d’Art Moderne, St. Etienne (FR); Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana (US); Kunstmuseum Solothurn (CH); FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon (FR); Kunsthalle Zürich (CH) and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (CH).

Hinke Schreuders’ (1969, Netherlands) working method is intuitive. In the process, needle and thread are often used as an eraser to cover parts of the photograph that do not appeal to the artist. By radically working on and adding elements to a photograph, Schreuders enables a new narrative to emerge. The intricate works produced by the artist with infinite patience exert a powerful attraction. A second glance however reveals darker undercurrents, leaving the viewer slightly disturbed.

Hinke Schreuders lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Akademie voor Industriële Vormgeving in Eindhoven and the AKI in Enschede. Her work has been widely exhibited at home and abroad, for example at the Nederlands Textielmuseum, Tilburg, Kunsthal KadE, Amersfoort and the Robert Mann Gallery, New York (VS). Her work is held in various public and private collections.

Despite its small size, Day is Done (let the morning rain) (2022) demands attention. Meticulous embroidery stitches have been applied over an image of a woman and a man gazing into the distance together, so the image is as much there as it is not. The work is part of Hinke Schreuders' (1969, Netherlands) Works on Paper, a series of embroidered works on pages of women's magazines from the 1950s and 1960s. Schreuders attaches the loose pages to linen and carefully reworks them with thread to create new compositions.

Schreuders' works come about intuitively. Needle and thread are not infrequently used as erasers to cover up parts of the photograph that the artist does not like. By thoroughly editing the photograph and adding elements, Schreuders allows a new story to prevail. There is a great appeal to the finely crafted works that have been worked on with angelic patience. However, a second glance also reveals dark undercurrents that leave the viewer slightly unsettled.

Hinke Schreuders lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Academy for Industrial Design in Eindhoven and the AKI in Enschede. Her work has been widely exhibited at home and abroad, including at the Netherlands Textile Museum, Tilburg, Kunsthal KadE, Amersfoort and the Robert Mann Gallery, New York (USA). Her work is included in several public and private collections.

Despite its small size Into the woods (cadmium yellow) (2023) demands attention. Yellow yarn has been applied to a black-and-white photograph of a landscape, giving the effect of a field of flowers scattering pollen. The work forms part of Hinke Schreuders’ (1969, Netherlands) Works on Paper, a series of embroidered works on pages from women’s magazines from the 1950s and 1960s. Schreuders mounts the loose pages on linen and uses yarn to painstakingly transform them into new compositions.

Schreuders’ working method is intuitive. In the process, needle and thread are not infrequently used as an eraser to cover parts of the photograph that do not appeal to the artist. By radically working on and adding elements to a photograph, Schreuders enables a new narrative to emerge. The intricate works produced by the artist with infinite patience exert a powerful attraction. A second glance however reveals darker undercurrents, leaving the viewer slightly disturbed

Hinke Schreuders lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Akademie voor Industriële Vormgeving in Eindhoven and the AKI in Enschede. Her work has been widely exhibited at home and abroad, for example at the Nederlands Textielmuseum, Tilburg, Kunsthal KadE, Amersfoort and the Robert Mann Gallery, New York (VS). Her work is held in various public and private collections.

Although the fashion photo of this young bride is full of promise, the alterations by Hinke Schreuders (1969, Netherlands) introduce a sharper undertone. The face of the bride is hidden by coarse tulle, and from the corner of her eye trickles a white trail of thread, somewhere between a fold of her veil and a rolling tear. Schreuders treated a page from a 1950s women’s magazine with yarn and fabric to create this composition.           

Schreuders’ working method is intuitive. In the process, needle and thread are not infrequently used as an eraser to cover parts of the photograph that do not appeal to the artist. By radically working on and adding elements to a photograph, Schreuders enables a new narrative to emerge. The intricate works produced by the artist with infinite patience exert a powerful attraction. A second glance however reveals darker undercurrents, leaving the viewer slightly disturbed.

Hinke Schreuders lives and works in Amsterdam. She studied at the Akademie voor Industriële Vormgeving in Eindhoven and the AKI in Enschede. Her work has been widely exhibited at home and abroad, for example at the Nederlands Textielmuseum, Tilburg, Kunsthal KadE, Amersfoort and the Robert Mann Gallery, New York (VS). Her work is held in various public and private collections.

The architectural shapes in the drawings of Sandro Setola (1976, Netherlands) live in the twilight between desire and reality, questioning their purpose and meaning. In soft pastel colors, a space is depicted where inside and outside are separated only by four glass walls and delicate net curtains. The house as a place where we can retreat, takes on a questionable meaning here.

Sandro Setola examines how natural phenomena like growth, decay and transformation mirror human psychology. The result is a series of structures that feel less like physical spaces and more like manifestations of thought: full of poetry, building on a language and a need that everyone carries within.

Sandro Setola lives and works in Rotterdam (NL). He studied at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. In 2009, Setola won the Charlotte van Pallandt Prize. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including at Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen (NL), Centraal Museum in Utrecht (NL), and KM21 in The Hague (NL). Setola has participated in various residencies, including a significant one at the Camden Arts Centre in London in 2005.

Who allowed you to live beautifully? (2024) by Anton Shebetko (1990, Ukraine) seems to address the viewer personally. However, the work has a complex meaning. The sentence was initially attributed to Russian occupiers who allegedly left it on a destroyed building in Kiev. Only later did it become clear that the graffiti was applied and recorded in Russia as early as 2016. The mistake has meant that the phrase has come to symbolize the impact of fake news and the role of information warfare in modern conflicts.

Shebetko’s art practice includes photography, video, installation, neon, printmaking, performance and interventions. His work is an ongoing investigation into Ukraine’s forgotten queer history. By excavating archival material and photography, he hopes to reveal stories that would otherwise remain hidden and restore a historical identity to the LGBTQIA+ community. Part of this history has been published in his book A Very Brief and Subjective Queer History of Ukraine (2022).

Anton Shebetko currently lives in Amsterdam, where he received his bachelor’s degree from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Shebetko received the RM Residency Award and the Where Love Is Illegal Fellowship. His work has been exhibited among others at Foam and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL); Frei_raum Q21, Vienna (AT); Photo Elysée, Lausanne (CH); CENTQUATRE-PARIS (FR); BWA Studio, Wroclaw (PL); Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart (DE) and Mystetskyi Arsenal, Kiev (UA).

The work of Elisa Sighicelli (1968, Italy) explores the everyday and is an attempt to make the ordinary intensely normal. Light reveals, darkness conceals. Reality is reshaped, and the image remains open, suggestive, always balancing between seeing and hiding. In this work, light seems to casually invade the space, a natural moment where time briefly stands still. The wooden table and chair absorb the warmth of the rays, while the rest of the room fades into shadow. This subtle contrast between light and dark, visibility and concealment, is characteristic of Sighicelli’s work.

Although her photos are produced in editions, each piece carries a unique presence. By strategically working with light, Sighicelli allows certain parts of the image to fade into illusion or, conversely, crystallize into realism. As a result, her work becomes more than just a representation of the image: it is an autonomous object, where matter and image merge.

Elisa Sighicelli studied textile design at Polimoda in Florence (IT) and continued her education in fine arts at Chelsea College of Art, Kingston University, and the Slade School of Fine Art in London (UK). Her work has been widely exhibited, including at the Venice Biennale (IT) in 2009 and at institutions such as Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milan (IT); GAM, Turin (IT); MAMbo, Bologna (IT); and the Centro d’Arte Contemporanea, Siena (IT).

There is something heroic about this still creature by Johan Tahon (1965, Belgium). The mythical Sedna, Mother of the Sea in Inuit mythology, fuels our fascination with the deep sea, and implores us to protect what we barely know and can even less comprehend. Not entirely human, not entirely wonder, she displays great willpower and a strong spirit, in harmony with nature. In Sedna, Tahon embodies the power of the hidden and the value of the depth in which lies the opportunity to transcend superficiality.

Alone, and in the stillness of his own studio, Tahon processes the materials from which he constructs his sculptures. He casts clay and uses the moulds from these castings to make new works. The casting moulds can be traced in the end result by the thick seams that run over the sculpture. The glaze that he pours over his tranquil figures creates an intriguing interplay of drips and pools.

Johan Tahon lives and works in Sint-Denijs-Boekel (BE). He studied at KASK, Ghent (BE). His work has been frequently and internationally exhibited, including at the Istanbul Biennale (TR), the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels (BE); Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (NL); and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL). His work is part of various national and international collections.

When you look at this photo, you see a space made up of whitish-gray panels. The panels are cut into a pattern of irregular shapes, stacked into columns. It’s a ragged construction that feels both familiar and strange. It looks like a building, yet at the same time, it is not, because in this image, nothing is what it once was.

Large-scale architectural installations in derelict buildings scheduled for demolition are central to the artistic practice of Marjan Teeuwen (1953, Netherlands). Teeuwen breaks down the ceilings, walls and floors of chosen houses and rearranges the resulting debris into architectural sculptures, thus creating new vistas and rhythms within the existing structure. Autonomous photo pieces form the only remaining traces of Teeuwen’s interventions after the wrecking ball has done its work. They function as lieux de mémoire, speaking to the dialectical forces of construction, destruction, order and chaos Teeuwen considers intrinsic to the human condition.

Marjan Teeuwen graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, Tilburg, and the Academy of Fine Arts St. Joost, Breda (NL). Her independent photographic work has been exhibited at numerous locations, including Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden (NL); Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL); Cobra Museum, Amstelveen (NL) and various national and international art events. Teeuwen’s work is included in private and public collections, such as the Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL) and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL).

In many cultures, spring is the season of renewal and rebirth. In An angel, kissing spring (2022) this meaning takes on a melancholy undertone. In this sculpture Dirk van Saene (1959, Belgium) looks back to the spring of his own life: his youth. Such themes as fear of the future and dread of aging and alienation from the world are central to his intimate portraits. The idea that nothing is forever has an effect both paralyzing and liberating on Van Saene. In his work, time is both friend and foe.

Van Saene is a fashion designer, painter and sculptor. His sculptures can be seen as vehicles of human emotions. Each sculpture possesses its own unique character, aura and message. The human body is not depicted in a literal sense, but functions as a ‘container’ in which emotions merge and acquire solid form.

Dirk van Saene lives and works in Zandhoven (BE). He graduated from the Koninklijke Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerpen (BE) and became well-known as one of the Antwerpse Zes. His work as artist is held in the collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam (NL) and MoMU – Modemuseum Antwerpen (BE).

In The Raquet Club (2016), we catch a glimpse of a guest at a luxury resort in Palm Springs, Los Angeles. The title of the work is derived from a popular resort that opened in 1934, fell into oblivion, and was demolished in the late 20th century due to severe decay. Caroline Walker (1982, United Kingdom) zooms in on the luxurious lives of the residents of this desert city, where the ‘good life’ is artificially maintained with lush gardens, turquoise pools and cooling water spray on the streets.

The voyeuristic scenes in Walker’s paintings build on the language of urban existence. In charged and often luxurious spaces, Walker creates visual narratives that obscure the traditional idea of women as subjects. The work explores femininity in this modern, image-conscious age.

Caroline Walker lives and works in London (UK). She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 2004, and then trained at the Royal College of Art, London (UK). Her work has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum (UK); Scottish National Gallery (UK); K11, Shanghai (CH) and the Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL), among others. In 2023, she received the Contemporary Art Society Award.

A woman looks inquiringly at the viewer over her shoulder. Her dress and figure are illuminated in the spring sun, yet behind her, darkness is crawling into the painting. Jonathan Wateridge (1972, Zambia) depicts her in a state of flux, somewhere between appearing and disappearing, as if trapped in a disturbing dream. The undefined nature of the space in which she finds herself contributes to the scene’s ominous atmosphere.

The human in isolation is the main theme in Wateridge’s paintings. His figures appear ghostlike, charged with feelings of disturbance and uncertainty. They become entangled in their surroundings; bodies are flattened or take on an almost sculptural form. The existential solitude that emanates from his figures raises questions about how we can relate to the world around us.

Jonathan Wateridge studied painting at the Glasgow School of Art (UK). He currently lives and works in Norfolk (UK). His work has been exhibited at among others, the Boghossian Foundation, Brussels (BE); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (IT); Saatchi Gallery, Adelaide (AU) and Hermitage, St. Petersburg (RU). His work is part of prestigious collections, including the Aïshti Foundation (LB), Pinault Collection (FR/IT) en Saatchi Collection (UK).

The Society Architect Ponders the Golden Gate Bridge (1997) refers to an opera for which Lawrence Weiner (1942-2021, United States) provided the stage design and libretto. The opera’s plot is based on an actual court case: on the Golden Gate Bridge, an artist is hit by a car driven by a drunken architect. In the court case, however, a paradoxical twist occurs, the artist becomes the defendant under the examination of a reactionary judge. The result is an ordinary accident turned into a political debate about the artist’s role and value in society.

Although Lawrence Weiner saw himself as a sculptor rather than a conceptualist, he was among the trailblazers of the 1960s to present art as language. Weiner’s work exists of languages and materials to which language referred; using language itself as a sculptural fact. In addition to his sculptures, Weiner produced music, films, and videos, as well as artist books and editions, throughout his career.

Lawrence Weiner worked primarily in New York (USA) and, since the early 1970s, also frequently in Amsterdam (NL). Starting in the 1960s, he became one of the leading figures in conceptual art. Weiner had solo exhibitions at, among others, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL); Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (ES); Whitney Museum, New York (USA); and MoCA, Los Angeles (USA). His work was featured in documenta 5, 6, 7, and 13, as well as the 36th, 41st, 50th, and 55th editions of the Venice Biennale. Weiner won numerous international awards, including the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation Prize (2015) and posthumously, the Oskar Kokoschka Award (2022).

A calculator, a stapler, an alarm clock and a reading lamp; it takes little effort to recognize these dressed-up objects. On a small desk that someone seems to have just walked away from, objects are gathered that have undergone a remarkable transformation. Also the chair, handbag and a pair of shoes are covered in embroidery, like a perfectly fitting garment.

After years of collecting cross-stitch embroidery, Ulla-Stina Wikander (1957, Sweden) began to apply her finds in entirely new ways. Meticulously, she covers the surface of household objects from the 1970s with handiwork, causing the surface and undersurface to change each other in such a way as to distort everyday notions of kitsch and culture. From the hollow irony that so often prevails, however, the work remains entirely boundless; her handiwork speaks of sincerity, and, with eloquence, of beauty.

Ulla-Stina Wikander lives and works in Kullavik/Stockholm (SE). She studied at the Hovedskous Målarskola, Gothenburg (SE). Her work has been exhibited at, among others, Göteborgs Konstförening, Gothenburg (SE); Virserums Konsthall, Virserum (SE); Liljevalchs Konsthall, Stockholm (SE); Invisible Dog Art Center, New York (US); and Design Museum Holon, Tel Aviv (IL).

In his work, Måns Wrange (1961, Sweden) explores the boundaries of knowledge and curiosity, playing with the way we engage with information. The Unfinished Book (1998) offers an answer to all your pressing questions. So, ask away! The book responds to sound waves entering through a horn, with a refined mechanism causing it to spin and randomly open to a passage from a famous philosopher. This unexpected moment connects the viewer with new ideas and concepts. The interaction serves as a metaphor for the endless cycle of questions and answers in philosophy, where each discovery always leads to more questions. The Unfinished Book (1998) reminds us that knowledge is never complete, but always evolving: a continuous process of reflection and wonder.

Måns Wrange lives and works in Stockholm (SE). Wrange studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and at the Berghs School of Communication in Stockholm. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at MoMA PS1, New York (US); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (SE); Santa Monica Museum of Art (US); Manifesta, at the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (AT); and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (US). His work is included in the collections of Malmö Konstmuseum and Moderna Museet, both in Sweden.

In this painting, Robert Zandvliet (1970, Netherlands) drops the viewer right in the middle of nature. Through the grass and flowers we look up at a blistering sunrise. Aurora (2023) is part of the series Paradaidha, which is derived from the old Persian word for ‘enclosed garden’. The word ‘Paradise’ as we know it also stems from that. For Zandvliet, the framework of his painting is the imaginary fence. With an all-over composition of vegetation, he evokes an image that everyone recognizes. A color field that vibrates and looms like a Fata Morgana.

Zandvliet is known for his exploration of the boundaries between abstraction and figuration. In his paintings, composition and coincidence, abstraction and figuration, space and surface merge. He makes frequent use of the landscape as starting point, but instead of realistic representation he opts for a playful use of lines, colors and surfaces. By this means, the foreground and background shift and merge and the viewer experiences a new feeling of depth.

Robert Zandvliet was resident at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited internationally and is held in various collections, including those of Kunstmuseum Bonn (CH); Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Strasbourg (DE); M HKA, Antwerp (BE); De Pont, Tilburg (NL); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (NL) and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL).