TJEBBE BEEKMAN

Lives and works in Amsterdam (NL)

Tjebbe Beekman’s canvases are simultaneously abstract and expressive, disorienting the viewer’s sense of space. Layering increasingly fragmented and polarised images, Beekman’s work is a personal reflection of contemporary society and his method of adapting to the existential events of today through creating a dialogue with his contemporaries of the past.

Beekman’s work embraces and pays tribute to a breadth of influences from Sandro Botticelli to Otobong Nkanga - balancing composition, color and perspective through the lens of art history while incorporating the nuance of socially and environmentally engaged contemporary work into his narrative. Beekman’s voracious palette of influences and ideas evokes the endless stream of media and information we sift through daily.

Nodding to historic iconographic painting, Beekman challenges what is expected of the medium to innovate and celebrate the act of creating in its entirety. Beekman uses digital tools to capture the glitches and internal references in his early motifs, before building them out using paint, sand and plaster which he layers onto the canvas with a brush, palette knife or his fingers, to later be scraped away or built up into relief. The layered surfaces of Beekman’s paintings underline the meaning of his work, and follow the artist’s interest in architectural space.

Tjebbe Beekman (b. 1972 in Leiden, NL) lives and works in Amsterdam (NL). He attended the KABK: Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (NL) from 1993 to 1997, followed by the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (NL) from 2003 to 2004.

Awards and nominations include the Theo Wolvecamp Prize (NL), Buning Brongers Prize (NL), and the Royal Painting Prize (NL).

Selected collections: Aedes Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); ABN Amro Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Akzo Nobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam (NL); Straus Family Collection, New York, NY (US); Collection De Heus-Zomer, Barneveld (NL); The Hort Family Collection, New York, NY (US); ING Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Kunstmuseum, The Hague (NL); Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL); Sanders Collection (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Schiedam (NL).

Courtesy GRIMM