Term: Oct-Nov 2026
Matijs van de Kerkhof (1977, Nuenen, The Netherlands) His practice investigates the friction between the art historical canon, contemporary visual culture, and the uncanny nature of memory and mortality.
Today’s consciousness is non-linear. We digest seventeenth-century Baroque drama, nineteen-fifties Abstract Expressionist rage, and nineteen-seventies conceptual minimalism simultaneously within seconds.
Rooted in traditional techniques—from classical portraiture and religious iconography to vanitas still life—my paintings disrupt familiar historical forms through layered painterly interventions, gestural impasto, unnatural palette shifts, and surreal juxtapositions.
By fracturing figure and form, I strip historical subjects of their original authority. Empty garments, animal relics, and disorienting interior spaces act as quiet stage sets, while isolated objects, distorted motifs, and unexpected shifts in scale subvert the solemnity of old-world traditions.
The resulting works inhabit a threshold between presence and absence, memory and corruption, transforming canonical imagery into lingering psychological landscapes where reverence meets absurdity.
