Upcoming events
Scroll, Capture, Forget
Duo presentation with Emre Özakat and Romina Koopman
Gallery van Fanny Freytag proudly presents a duo presentation by Emre Özakat and Romina Koopman from June 13 until July 12.
The work of both artists focuses on digital imagery, the changing meaning of images, and the large number of pictures we see everyday. Emre Özakat explores these ideas through a series of oil paintings, while Romina Koopman shows her work using prints displayed on old monitors and 3D-printed photographs.
Emre and Romina collect, slow down, and transform visual material that would typically be scrolled past and forgotten. Through this process, they raise questions about the randomness and worth of the images that flood our digital lives. Drawing from their personal archives of online visuals, they recontextualize these fragments in unique and thoughtful ways. By pausing and reimagining such imagery, they invite us to reflect on what happens when we look more closely, when we choose to engage with, rather than overlook, the constant stream of pictures that shape our everyday digital experience.
For inquiries please contact us.
To read more about the works and the show, scroll down.
Substation, 2025, CMYK silkscreen, multiple layers of polarising film in a metal frame, 30 x 53 cm.
ABOUT ROMINA
Romina Koopman (1996) is intrigued by how digital images can change our perception of reality. Her work reflects on how the photographic medium, within the digital era, creates a new ever-evolving truth.
She approaches photography as a shape-shifting medium, rejecting the image as a flat surface; a view expressed in the materialization of her work: digital and analogue. In 2024 she completed a masters at Sandberg Instituut. in 2022 she was part of the Best of Graduates of the Ron Mandos Young Blood Foundation after a bachelor at Rietveld Academy, she also won the Steenbergen Stipendium that year.
Gears, 2025, Oil on Linen, 90 x 40 cm.
ABOUT EMRE
Emre Özakat (1997) investigates the anxieties of living in a world excessively politicized and media hyper-saturated with increasingly omnipresent surveillance, often as well questioning the credibility of the digital image in the 21st century through various methods of obscuring or manipulating digital images.
Özakat graduated in 2020 from Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Since then he has participated numerous projects such as, in Springboard Art Fair 2023 in Utrecht, [Dis]comfort Food and The Grey Space in the Middle.
Special thanks to Mondriaan fonds
Gallery text
In this day and age, dozens of images pass by in our digital lives. Screens seem to direct our gaze and shape our perception. In the exhibition Capture, Scroll, Forget, Emre Özakat and Romina Koopman reflect on digital aesthetics, algorithmic logic, and the endless accessibility of online imagery.
Scrolling through the apps on phones, some of us might find ourselves wondering: “What was I looking for here?” A moment of reflection may remind them to put the phone down, only to pick it up again minutes later. Screens have become extensions of our bodies and minds: digital assistants at our constant service. But who is assisting whom? Koopman and Özakat ask. Isn’t it strange that the reflex of taking a quick picture, only to forget about it, has become so universally familiar?
Intrigued by how digital images alter our perception of reality, Romina Koopman explores what happens when photography becomes a reflex. Going through her archive, she found photos she didn’t remember taking. “Silent leftovers of daily life,” she calls them. Visual fragments without clear context or meaning. In the grey area where tangible and virtual worlds meet, she reclaims these forgotten images from her camera roll. Through the slow, physical process of 3D printing, she gives them ‘form’. Literally. Fragile pixels become tangible surfaces. “Can surface, texture, and scale restore attention where there was none?” she wonders. Her overlooked images, once scrolled past, now demand presence.
This search for attention and value continues in another part of her practice. “I took screenshots of everything I liked,” Romina says. “Even from a somewhat shady website streaming surveillance footage.” A palm tree dancing in the wind, a playground at night, a crossroads from above. From 5,000 screenshots, she selected a few. In this installation of security images, she reclaims control by putting her phone down, freezing the feed, and choosing to look. No more endless scrolling, just stillness.
One particular image of a chair, taken without memory or meaning, prompted the question: “Why did I feel the need to capture this?” She found more images like this in her iCloud, equally empty of context. By turning them into silkscreens and “spending time with them,” she searched for a way to restore their value. “Through a time-consuming technique, I created CMYK prints of the photos, layer by layer.” A challenge to “show an image in a way we may not have seen before.” The layered surface requires viewers to move around them to see the image in its full colours. This act of slowing down invites a new kind of connection with the image, and with Romina’s altered relationship to it.
Emre Özakat has painted all his life. Yet during his time at the Rietveld Academie, he turned to video art, a key step in reconsidering the role of painting in his practice today. After graduating, he returned to oil painting, now infused with a digital influence. Drawing from his digital archive, he paints imagery such as car crashes, broken computers, or cracked eggs scattered across pavement. While varied, these images share a gesture of rupture. “The eggs especially, normally symbols of reproduction and life, become unsettling when seen cracked open on concrete,” he says.
The contrast between the speed of digital imagery and the slowness of oil painting fascinates him. Oil paint stays wet for days, forcing deliberate decisions. Digital images, by contrast, move too fast to grasp. To decelerate and shift meaning, Özakat blurs, mutes, and obscures his subjects. These gestures give his work a ghostly sensibility, reflections on failure, fragmentation, and memory. His paintings, marked by traces of unrealized futures and distorted forms, demand patience. They invite viewers to slow down, to step back, and ask: what am I actually seeing?
For Emre, form is content. He works within a fixed format of 40 x 40 cm. “A visual unit that mirrors how we encounter images now,” he explains. Similar in size to thumbnails or social media posts, these square panels reflect the fragmented, repetitive way we consume digital imagery. Together, they build a modular archive, echoing the clutter of our visual environment. His use of muted colors reinforces this sense of residue. “These are spectral images,” he says; Ghosts of once-clear photos, now degraded by circulation, compression, and neglect. The subdued palette intensifies this sense of visual decay, giving form to digital fragments that hover between presence and disappearance.
In both Koopman’s and Özakat’s work, digital imagery is a starting point. They collect, isolate, and transform visuals we’d usually scroll past: a photo of a car, a plastic chair, an empty room. Through their practices, they ask what happens when we pause, when we give these fragments our time and attention. In doing so, they invite us to reflect on the flood of images we encounter every day, and how we might see them differently.
Written by Tessa Vallinga
I am a lot of people | Solo by Lisette van Hoogenhuyze
I am a lot of people
Solo exhibtion by Lisette van Hoogenhuyze
After our first participation in Art Rotterdam this year with a solo presentation by Lisette van Hoogenhuyze, we are thrilled to announce the upcoming solo exhibition I am a lot of people by Lisette van Hoogenhuyze at our Gallery. Opening on Friday May 16th 17:00 and on show until June 7. This exhibition will be on view during Amsterdam Art Week (May 20 - May 25) & Stripfest (May 24).
We have curated a special program with free admission, read more below.
In her new exhibition, van Hoogenhuyze reflects on the layered identities that come with motherhood. The works mark the beginning of a long-term exploration into this transformation, which is at once deeply personal and widely shared.
Becoming a mother means becoming many people at once: caregiver, cook, researcher, administrator, planner, communicator, chauffeur. These roles accumulate rapidly, often without time to fully absorb the shift. In the whirlwind of responsibility, the woman she once was begins to fade: present only in glimpses, never fully re-inhabited. This overwhelming fragmentation often turns inward. In a time when support is most needed, many mothers find themselves facing it alone. While the need for community is greater than ever, our society no longer seems structured to provide it.
Through sculpture, textiles and drawings, Van Hoogenhuyze captures this quiet rupture. Her work traces the emotional undercurrents of early motherhood: love, loss, exhaustion, and the silent mourning of a former self. I am a lot of people offers a tender, unfiltered look at the invisible labor and fractured identities that shape the maternal experience and the longing for connection in a time of deep transformation.
Clouds in my coffee (2023), wool, acrylic and oil on burlap, 120cm x 170cm
This exhibition will be on view during Amsterdam Art Week (May 20 - May 25) & Stripfest (May 24).
We have curated a special program with free admission:
Events during the exhibition:
• Friday May 23, 19:00—22:00 Slumberparty Movie Night
Join us for a cozy evening with popcorn and pillows. Featuring short films that explore themes of womanhood, nature, family, and connection. The films offer a rich perspective on how these themes intertwine with the complexity of human experience and identity. With a short artist talk between the artists afterwards.
• Saturday May 24, 13:00—16:00 Workshop Mask and Puppet Making
(for Parents and Children)
A hands-on workshop where parents and children work together to create masks or puppets that represent one of their own “versions.” Using a variety of materials, this creative activity encourages exploration and expression of the many dimensions of self.
Saturday May 24, 20:00—22:00: Drinks & art performance.
Fuxico fofoca (2024), Diptych, Wool, Acrylic paint and yarn on burlap, 240cm x 170 cm (2x 120 cm x 170 cm)
Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (1991) was born in The Hague, Netherlands. She holds a degree in Art History from the University of Amsterdam and graduated in Fine Art from the University of the Arts Utrecht in 2019. She currently lives and works between Amsterdam and Lisbon.
As a multimedia artist, Lisette has developed a profound interest in the behavior and habits of different cultures. Through her encounters, she has observed a recurring theme: a quest for belonging among people on their own contemporary pilgrimages.
An avid traveler herself, Lisette’s work explores themes of identity, collective memory, and language. Using layered compositions and vibrant color arrangements inspired by diverse visual motifs, she invites viewers on a journey through different interpretations of contemporary (sub)cultures. Her work traverses invisible borders that feel more relevant than ever.
Van Hoogenhuyze’s art has been showcased at esteemed institutions such as Museum IJsselstein, Torch Gallery (Amsterdam), ART Rotterdam, and Saatchi Gallery (London). Her work is included in notable collections, including the Rijksoverheid (Dutch Government), the KPMG art collection, the Büyükkusoglu collection, and private collections in New York, Slovakia, Italy, and the Netherlands.
The first weeks II (2025) color pencil, oil pastel and oil paint on handmade Indian paper, framed, approx 33cm x 45cm
Art Rotterdam | Lisette van Hoogenhuyze
Art Rotterdam
with Lisette van Hoogenhuyze
For the New Art section of Art Rotterdam 2025, Gallery van Fanny Freytag is proud to present a solo exhibition by Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (b. 1991).
Van Hoogenhuyze is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of identity, subcultures, and global citizenship. Her most recent work is inspired by her experience of new motherhood and navigating cultural identity, with her child being raised in a richly multicultural environment.
In her practice, van Hoogenhuyze incorporates traditional craftsmanship, particularly textiles, weaving, embroidery, patterns, and ceramics.
For Art Rotterdam 2025, Lisette van Hoogenhuyze will show a selection of both new and earlier works that embody the theme of cultural identity in a heavily globalized but polarized world.
For more information or tickets, please contact the gallery: gallery@vanfannyfretyag.com
We Need the Village, 2024, 240 cm x 180 cm, wool, acrylic and oil on burlap
Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (1991) was born in The Hague, Netherlands. She holds a degree in Art History from the University of Amsterdam and graduated in Fine Art from the University of the Arts Utrecht in 2019. She currently lives and works between Amsterdam and Lisbon.
As a multimedia artist, Lisette has developed a profound interest in the behavior and habits of different cultures. Through her encounters, she has observed a recurring theme: a quest for belonging among people on their own contemporary pilgrimages.
An avid traveler herself, Lisette’s work explores themes of identity, collective memory, and language. Using layered compositions and vibrant color arrangements inspired by diverse visual motifs, she invites viewers on a journey through different interpretations of contemporary (sub)cultures. Her work traverses invisible borders that feel more relevant than ever.
Van Hoogenhuyze’s art has been showcased at esteemed institutions such as Museum IJsselstein, Torch Gallery (Amsterdam), ART Rotterdam, and Saatchi Gallery (London). Her work is included in notable collections, including the Rijksoverheid (Dutch Government), the KPMG art collection, the Büyükkusoglu collection, and private collections in New York, Slovakia, Italy, and the Netherlands.
'Seamless Tissue Might Fray'
‘Seamless Tissue Might Fray’
A group exhibition curated by Simone Iris de Haan
With:
Gegee Ayurzana, Tereza Sýkorová, Nadie Borggreve, Bregje Sliepenbeek, Anthony Ngoya and Neil Fortune
Seamless Tissue Might Fray opens on March 14, 17:00 at Gallery van Fanny Freytag and is on view until April 24.
Seamless Tissue Might Fray is a group exhibition that explores the ways in which contemporary artistic practices call upon the potency of textiles in pulling closer our memories faded by time, as well as historic realms of making. Serving as portals, textiles enable access to past practices and systems of knowledge, leading us to lived experiences and generational stories. Situated around the phenomenon of textiles as triggers of our previous perceptions, this group exhibition brings together artists who, through their practices, reactivate the material remnants of realities we’re close to losing grasp of. Carrying the textile tool into future spheres, these textile practices call upon our engagement with the ambiguous and the incommensurable, while their transience and fragility confronts us with finitude. Seamless Tissue Might Fray explores whether it might be this fragility of textiles that reconnects us with a state of vulnerability, and how we leave certain memories to perish when we cease continuations and reintegrations of matter and practice.
Nadie Borggreve and Bregje Sliepenbeek, Gates of Ancient Gardens, 2022. Dyed wool, latex, backing, and tin, approx. 45 x 30 cm, dimensions variable. Available separately, for inquiries click here
Nadie Borggreve's (1991, Amsterdam, Netherlands) tufted landscapes emerge from a deep fascination for serendipitous encounters with nature, her cyclical approach to treating nature’s elements both as material source and as an origin of her illusionary dreamscapes, where natural settings are at once distorted and enhanced by human perception. Sourced from stockpile textiles and worn garments, Borggreve’s hand dyed wool takes on a luminosity that defies the material’s inherent heavyweightedness when forcefully tufted. Unusually rich colors, obtained through her distinctive dyeing process, glow bright like skylit stained glass windows overlooking mesmerizing, fragmented fields. Borggreve’s works act as portals into spiritual and circular realms, where textiles become tools to explore our place among them.
Borggreve’s works Gates of Ancient Gardens (2023) were sculpted in collaboration with Bregje Sliepenbeek, whose practice is centred on metal, aluminum and tin sculpting––morphing rigid materials into fluid looking, at times cushionlike, tactile objects.
Nadie Borggreve studied at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague, where she won the department prize for Textile and Fashion (2016). Borggreve’s current studio practice evolved from fashion design towards an artistic practice where textiles extend into unexpected spheres, of which her ongoing experimental process forms an integral part.
Bregje Sliepenbeek received her BA in Edelsmeden (Jewelry) from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (2013).
Anthony Ngoya, Stele of a Memory 1, 2022, scanned photos transferred to repurposed linoleum panels on wood, acrylic, fringes, 105 x 60 cm.
Anthony Ngoya (1995, Limoges, France) reconstructs fragments of memory, emotion, and identity into vibrant sculptural installations that defy the boundaries of painting as a medium. By layering personal and collective imagery–ranging from personal and public photo archives to discarded urban scraps and construction debris–Ngoya’s works become bearers of intergenerational memory, both shared and personal. Strips of redyed textiles, imprinted with archival images through various printing techniques, evoke lingering feelings of nostalgia. Ngoya’s works stand as ruins of distant times, as he himself refers to them, our sentiments at once distorted and comforted by the interplay of the ambiguous and the familiar.
Anthony Ngoya obtained his MA in Painting from La Cambre in Brussels, Belgium (2020). From 2023 until 2024, Ngoya was an artist in residence at De Ateliers, Amsterdam.
Special thanks to Gallery Caroline O'Breen.
Neil Fortune, Seek and You Shall Find, 2023–2025 (Detail), silkscreen print on textile, threads, steel frame, 74 cm x 74 cm x 58 cm.
Neil Fortune’s (1983, Georgetown, Guyana) practice is driven by his urge to cultivate social interactions and oscillates between sculpture, drawing, painting and architectural interventions. Fortune utilizes textiles as recurring witnesses and documentary tools, carrying the traces of live encounters through drawings and doodles that emerge during his deeply personal conversations and performances with communities and occasional participants. Rooted in research, his work explores the material convergences and allures of the natural and the artificial. Fortune’s textile installation Seek And You Shall Find (2023–2025) reimagines material remnants through photography and silkscreen, mimicking laboratory studies of intricate organisms. Shards of glass are observed and treated as natural phenomena, their fragmented shapes rendered into countless variations, an orderly process of archiving and reorganising. Fortune treats discarded residues of consumption with respect and emotional care, imbuing them with an archeological status.
Neil Fortune was trained as a painter at the Nola Hatterman Art Academy in Paramaribo, Suriname, after which he obtained his BA in Fine Art at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
Tereza Sýkorová, When We Reach The Afterlife, Cotton, threads, wire, photo print, 170 x 62 cm
Tereza Sýkorová’s (1996, Vsetín, Czechia) sculptural objects are conceived of wrapped strands of reclaimed textiles, redyed and winded with colored threads into what she calls cocoons. Sýkorová’s works expand into spatial installations, often enhanced by sound, that magnify our interconnectedness to nature, bringing up feelings of rootedness to natural cycles and ancestral practices. She seeks to collaborate with these cycles, viewing life on earth as a non-hierarchical network of elements with which her textile practice confluences and interacts. Capturing these exchanges through photography, with water metaphorically infusing them with echoes of memory, decay, and rebirth, she reintegrates them into her pieces. Some of Sýkorová’s works draw on Slavic mythology, where wells symbolize portals into past realms, representing interconnected forms and periods of life.
Tereza Sýkorová holds an MA in Intermedia from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, Czechia (2022).
Gegee Ayurzana, Illusions of itch, 2025 (Detail), Oil and EVA resin on sheer polyester, 110 x 115 cm.
Gegee Ayurzana (1998, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) paints presences that roam freely through spaces, carried by veils suspended above us––their transparency recentering brushstrokes, which emerge as subjects by themselves. Confronting the boundaries and conventional narratives of painting, Ayurzana experiments with unexpected material variations, reinviting them as bearers of her painted beings. She explores the unheeded abilities of textiles, wood, and foil, among other materials, to heighten our physical awareness of sharing presence and coinhabiting spaces with her pieces, which cut seamlessly across spatial surfaces.
Gegee Ayurzana holds a dual BA in Fine Arts from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK), The Hague and Art History from Leiden University (2021). From 2022 until 2023, Ayurzana was an artist in residence at De Ateliers, Amsterdam.
Group-exhibition | 'A Mirror of All Others'
‘A Mirror of All Others’
A group-exhibition with Ivalu Carlsen, Julia Creuheras, Bernice Nauta, Marinka Reuten and Elise van Staveren.
Work by Elise van Staveren, Match, 0,2 cm x 5 cm, 2024, sterling silver 925, 2024
Gallery van Fanny Freytag is proud to announce exhibition A Mirror of All Others, opening on January 17, 17:00.
A group exhibition that explores the thresholds of being and becoming, questioning how we shape meaning in the spaces in-between body and soul. The exhibition features work by Ivalu Carlsen, Julia Creuheras, Bernice Nauta, Marinka Reuten and Elise van Staveren.
A Mirror of All Others delves into the notion that our perception of identity is not static, but fluid: constantly shaped by the interplay between presence and absence, the physical and the immaterial.
The exhibition draws on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, which posits that the body acts as both a mirror and a gateway to the world, influencing how we navigate and understand our existence. In this exhibition, the artists explore the boundaries between these states of being, questioning and reimagining the boundaries that define our identity.
A Mirror of All Others shows works that touch on the theme in various ways: engaging with different facets of time, object-hood, non-presence, and fragments. Whether through the subtle passage of time, the transformation of objects into vessels of identity, or the presence of invisible forces, each piece invites reflection on how being and becoming are intertwined and ever-changing.
Ivalu Carlsen (1995, Denmark) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2024. Her graduation work is included in this exhibition, a drop made from glass and steel trying to do what is impossible; holding on to time. She works within the space of uncertainty, embracing the unpredictability between a gesture and its receiver, where the outcome remains unknown until it emerges.
Elise van Staveren (2000, Netherlands) is a visual artist whose work explores memory, time, and the relationship between the body and objects. The objects Elise paints, often appear worn, as if they carry life and identity in them. They evoke personal memories, such as those of her mother, and reflect how objects—like her silverware pieces—retain life through human interaction. She holds a Master of Fine Art from the Frank Mohr Institute (2021–2023) and a Bachelor of Fine Art with honors from HKU, Utrecht (2017–2021).
Marinka Reuten (Netherlands), a former graphic designer, shifted her focus entirely to autonomous art in 2022. Her paintings explore themes of time, impermanence and resilience through minimalist surfaces. Her work invites viewers to pause and reflect on life's transience, urging them to slow down, pay attention, and uncover the essence of each moment—whether through a broader view of time or a closer focus on its smallest details.
Julia Creuheras (1995, Spain) an artist based in Barcelona, explores the boundaries between life and non-life, magic and reality, focusing on the uncanny and creating pieces that evoke both wonder and unease through movement and technology. She graduated with an MA in Computational Arts from Goldsmiths in 2019 and a BA in Visual Arts from Camberwell College of Arts in 2018.
Bernice Nauta (1991, Netherlands) holds a BA in Fine Arts from the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague (2013) and an MFA from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam (2022). Her work often features characters and objects that hover between the visible and the invisible, exploring identity in transitional spaces and the interplay between form and imagination. Her multidisciplinary practice includes drawing, painting, installations, and film. For this exhibition Bernice made sculptures and asked; How can one learn to become someone?
By Ivalu Carlsen: A hundred roses, boxing gloves, rose water, 2024, 38 cm x 25 cm
By Elise van Staveren: Make You Proud, Oil on hemp, 150 cm x 115 cm, 2024
By Bernice Nauta: The Inn, oil on canvas, 2024, 40 cm x 50 cm
By Julia Creuheras: Si todo cuento cupiera en un zapato, resin, 2025, 20 cm x 40 cm
By Julia Creuheras: Res-ponsible matter, resin, wax and paper, 2025, 20 cm x 20 cm
By Marinka Reuten: If you have a minute #1, Acrylic on canvas, 2024, 120 cm x 100 cm
By Elise van Staveren: several pieces handmade in sterling silver. For more information, please contact us.
Azul Ehrenberg - ‘El Futuro Siempre Será Brillante’
El Futuro Siempre Será Brillante
A solo exhibition by Azul Ehrenberg
Where the wild flowers grow, (2024) 21 cm x 29,7 cm, mixed printing techniques on cotton and pine paper.
On Friday November 15th the solo exhibition ‘El Futuro Siempre Será Brillante’ by artist Azul Ehrenberg opens in Gallery van Fanny Freytag.
In the exhibition ‘El Futuro Siempre Será Brillante', multidisciplinary artist Azul Ehrenberg uses the lottery ticket as a symbol of hope and illusion. She explores the ambiguity of the lottery, representing both financial inequality and the attempt to escape it.
Having spent a year working in Mexico, she will show her photographic work, printed on Mexican lottery calendars. Her fascination with paper, in this case the texture and composition of the lottery sheets, is also evident in other work displayed at Fanny Freytag; a series of her handmade paper mixed with personal images. In addition to the photographic works, Ehrenberg presents the installation Portable Paradise. This is a collection of over 100 found objects, each representing a personal or emotional “paradise.”. She also made sculptural pieces for the exhibition, including her take on the classic Mexican piñata. Together, the works create a playful yet confrontational whole. They remind us of our vices and desires, of our differences and similarities, in a time when success seems to dictate the pace for finding fulfillment.
Overview shot
Azul Ehrenberg (1997) is an interdisciplinary artist working between Mexico and the Netherlands. She graduated from the Rietveld Academy in 2022 and has exhibited her work at places including Gallery Vriend van Bavink, Gallery van Fanny Freytag, Art Island, and various venues in Mexico. This year, she will present her work at Unfair, which takes place from November 21 to 24 at the Gashouder in Amsterdam.
In her work, she often combines handmade paper, visual poetry, and moving images, with a focus on archives and self-created imagery. She explores how narratives from the past and present influence our perception by intervening in existing materials and creating new contexts. Her experimental approach addresses themes such as heritage, memory, and the emotional resonance these evoke. Materiality plays a crucial role in her work; for instance, she makes paper from locally sourced plants, deepening her connection to her heritage. Her work invites reflection on solitude and the contrasts between modernity and tradition, drawing inspiration from both Mexico and the Netherlands. She blurs the line between reality and imagination, evoking a universal atmosphere that engages the senses. Her work is both personal and a reflection of broader cultural themes.
Overview shot
Book Launch: The collected works of Bart Eysink Smeets
‘The collected works of Bart Eysink Smeets’ is een boek waarbij je ‘collected’ – verzameld – vrij letterlijk moet nemen. Het is namelijk een sticker-verzamelboek waarvan de stickers voor het grootste gedeelte nog gemaakt moeten worden: dat is namelijk het werk van kunstenaar Bart Eysink Smeets wat nog niet bestaat. Met een lidmaatschap krijg je al die stickers maandelijks opgestuurd zodat het overzichtsboek van deze kunstenaar altijd actueel blijft. Kunstverzamelaar zijn is nog nooit zo goedkoop geweest.
Het boek wordt vrijdag 8 november feestelijk onthuld bij Gallery van Fanny Freytag.
We Came A Long Way| Kenneth Aidoo en Tom van Veen
We came a long way
Duo-expositie van Kenneth Aidoo en Tom van Veen
English below
Kunstenaars en vrienden Kenneth Aidoo en Tom van Veen tonen in de duo-expositie ‘We came a long way’ werk dat reflecteert op de betekenis en waarde van vriendschap.
De werken zijn een schilderkunstige ode aan broederschap, collectieve herinneringen, gedeelde herkenning en de mogelijkheden van een grotere gemeenschap
Tom van Veen onderzoekt hoe fenomenen zoals muziek, kleding, uitgaanscultuur en gebeurtenissen mensen verbindt in hedendaagse progressieve gemeenschappen. Met het werk dat getoond wordt in deze expositie laat hij de schoonheid van saamhorigheidsgevoel zien.
Kenneth Aidoo is in zijn werk ingegaan op zijn relatie met Tom van Veen. In een reeks intieme schilderijen laat Kenneth Aidoo zien wat het is dat hem verbindt met Tom van Veen; gedeelde vreugde, leed, smaak, interesses maar ook acceptatie van elkaars verschillen.
Tom van Veen, Drip, olieverf on canvas, 180 cm x 130 cm
Kenneth Aidoo, And They Shall be as One, 120 cm x 100 cm, olieverf op katoen
Werk gemaakt door Kenneth Aidoo, ‘Tom’, 2024, 40 cm x 50 cm, olieverf op canvas.
Kenneth Aidoo
Multidisciplinaire kunstenaar Kenneth Aidoo (1988) studeerde in 2019 af aan de Gerrit Rietveld Academie, daarvoor studeerde hij aan de Nederlandse Filmacademie (2015). In 2022 won hij de de Koninklijke Prijs voor Moderne Schilderkunst. Aidoo werkt met verschillende media zoals video-installaties en schilderijen. De representatie en onderbelichte geschiedenis van zwarte mensen loopt als een rode draad door het werk van Kenneth. Voor deze expositie keek Kenneth naar zijn relatie met Tom en maakte daar werk over. Momenteel heeft Kenneth een residentie in het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam bij Bureau Stedelijk, te bezoeken tot en met 17 oktober. In het Stedelijk Museum maakte Kenneth onder andere het portret ‘Tom’. Eerder toonde Kenneth werk bij Framer Framed, W139 en Unfair. Zijn werk zit onder andere in de kunstcollectie van Akzo Nobel Art Foundation.
Werk gemaakt door Tom van Veen, ‘The Exit’, 2024, 100 x 100 cm, olieverf op canvas.
Tom van Veen
Multidisciplinaire kunstenaar Tom van Veen (1995) studeerde in 2019 af aan de Artez Aki Hogeschool van de Kunsten met een bachelor Fine Art. Tom is bekend om zijn schilderijen maar werkt ook met textiel, 3d prints en andere media. Collectiviteit en verbondenheid zijn de hoofdonderwerpen van Tom’s werk, in zijn werk refereert hij zowel naar de oude meesters als naar universele thema’s uit de jeugdcultuur. Hij toonde werk bij onder andere Art Rotterdam, Unfair en This Art Fair.
English text
‘We came a long way’
Duo-exhibition with Kenneth Aidoo and Tom van Veen
In the duo-exhibition ‘We came a long way’, artists and friends Kenneth Aidoo and Tom van Veen present work that reflects on the meaning and value of friendship. The works are a painterly ode to brotherhood, collective memory, shared recognition, and the potential of being part of a larger community
Tom van Veen explores how phenomena such as music, fashion, nightlife, and events connect people in contemporary progressive communities. The works in this exhibition present the beauty of fellowship. Kenneth Aidoo has delved into his relationship to Tom. In a series of intimate paintings Kenneth presents what it is that connects him to Tom; shared joy, pain, tastes and interests, but also acceptance of each other’s differences.
About the artists:
Kenneth:
Multidisciplinary artist Kenneth Aidoo (1988) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in 2019. Previously, he studied at the Dutch FIlm Academy (2015). In 2022 he won the Royal Prize for Modern Painting. The underrepresented history of black people is an important theme in his work. Aidoo works with different media, such as video installations and painting. Kenneth currently has a residency with Buro Stedelijk in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, which is on view until October 17th. Past exhibitions have included Framer Framed, W139 and Unfair. His work has been selected for the Akzo Nobel Art Foundation.
Tom:
Multidisciplinary artist Tom van Veen (1995) graduated from the Artez Aki College of the Arts in 2019. He is known for his paintings but has also worked with textile, 3D printing and other media. Collectivity and Connection are the main themes of Tom’s work, referencing both the old masters and universal themes from youth culture. Past exhibitions have included Art Rotterdam, Unfair and This Art Fair.
Annelies Kamen | Absolutely Never Sitting Duck
“The image of the little dabbling duck catches me.
I’m looking out over an expanse of water and his upturned tush turns my landscape view around its axis by 90 degrees.
It’s like being jovially mooned, or being shown what category of thing belongs on this side of the water’s surface –
I’m just an ass here with the other asses.”
From May 30 until July 6 solo exhibition ‘Absolutely Never Sitting Duck’ is on view in gallery van Fanny Freytag, by Rijksakademie alumnus Annelies Kamen. The exhibition is curated by Jelmer Wijnstroom.
In the exhibition ‘Absolutely Never Sitting Duck’ Annelies Kamen presents an installation with new ceramics, video and print works. In her work Kamen plays with language and the power dynamics involved in joke-making. Her work often begins with autobiographical stories or myths, which she combines with research into pop and mass culture to understand how perceptions of what is 'real' are shaped and manipulated.
The structure for laying out a spread of decoy ducks is called a rig; it's used in hunting. Decoys can point out the boundaries between definitions of what is ‘real’ and what is not. The duck decoy is a construction meant to mimic the real, in order to destroy it; a tricky mirror and a deadly hoax. The presented works point out a thin line between what you could see as ‘real’ or ‘fake’, and sometimes the one seeps into the other, like the image of a Möbius strip. Or like a decoy duck is used to lure a real duck. On which side of the strip are we?
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Annelies Kamen (1988) is an artist based in Berlin. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 2011. And a Master of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014. Her work has been exhibited internationally at, among others, the Biennial of Humor and Satire in Art in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago and fffriedrich in Frankfurt am Main. She was a 2018 fellow of the Goldrausch Künstlerinnenproject, Berlin and a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam from 2021-2023.
Tja Ling Hu | A Corner of the Universe
A Corner of the Universe
solo exhibition by Tja Ling Hu
Tja Ling Hu, It’s best to harvest at full moon (2023), 41 x 29,5 cm, Potlood op steinbach papier
Solo exhibition ‘A corner of the Universe’ by artist Tja Ling Hu is on view in gallery van Fanny Freytag from April 19 until May 18.
In her work, Tja Ling explores the complexity of human existence, universal connectedness and migration movements. The pieces showcased in the exhibition are the result of her research into the influence of intergenerational transmissions on contemporary society. While eternal truths derived from myths offer wisdom and knowledge, negative behavioral patterns are also often transmitted across generations.
With the symbols that Tja Ling creates in her imagery, she invites her audience to an inner dialogue. Through self-development, a person contributes to the collective, building on the legacy of previous generations.
Tja Ling is known for her profound drawings on paper. Following her residency at the Vincent van GoghHuis in 2023, Tja Ling has expanded her repertoire by adding ceramic sculptures and paintings. For the first time, she brings these three mediums together, in the exhibition 'A Corner of the Universe'.
Tja Ling (1987) graduated in 2010 with a Bachelor of Design towards fashion. After realizing that the fashion world was not for her, Tja Ling discovered her passion for drawing. She graduated from the Luca School of Arts in Ghent in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts after which she completed a Master in Fine Arts in 2016. In 2017, she won the Fiep Westendorp Incentive Award. Tja Ling has previously shown work at Fanny Freytag's brother; gallery Vriend van Bavink, Beurs van Berlage, het Scheepvaart Museum and Museum IJsselstein. In 2023 she completed her residency at the Vincent van GoghHuis, during which she expanded her artistic repertoire, adding painting and ceramics. Her work is currently on show in the Amsterdam Museum as part of exhibition series Collecting the City #4.
Tja Ling Hu, Can a subject become an object? (2024), 40 x 50 cm, Olie op linnen
Tja Ling, Joshua tree (2024), 36 x 27 cm, Potlood op steinbach
Femi Dawkins | My Ghostly MRI’s
My Ghostly MRI’s
Solo exhibition by Femi Dawkins
March 22 - April 13
Opening March 22 Friday 17:00
Schaafstraat 10
From March 22nd, solo exhibition 'My Ghostly MRI’s' by artist Femi Dawkins is on view at gallery van Fanny Freytag.
Femi Dawkins shows a series of MRI's, an ongoing research project consisting of paper works with Lapis Lazuli, beetroot, salt and Indian Ink. My Ghostly MRI’s is a meditation on grief, faces abstracted into emotional landscapes.
As a child of the Diaspora and it’s migratory movements, Dawkins journeys through in-between worlds. His work focuses on these fractured narratives and the significance of personal narratives that translate into universal truths.
Shaheen Merali, Curator/ Artist based in London said about Femi's MRI's:
My Ghostly MRI’s are envisaged by the Jamaican born, Netherlands and London based, artist Femi Dawkins as a series of haunting portraits deploying mix media practice to obliquely articulate memory, and radical loss. Dawkins' involvement with diverse visual notations has enabled him to depict the condition he describes as the “silence grown to a punctuation.” For Dawkins, My Ghostly MRI’s provoke our imaginations to push boundaries and social attitudes which otherwise would remain archival documents “failing a beginning.”
Femi Dawkins is an independent artist, he graduated with a MFA from Goldsmiths University London with distinction (2022). He won the Gieskes-Strijbis Podiumprijs (2022) together with Kate Moore, he was the first recipient of the Lisson Gallery scholarship (2022), was selected as a New Contemporaries artist (2021), and was awarded the the Ford Fellowship (1991-90). He received his BA/BS from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY (1989) and is an alumni of La Guardia High School of Music and Art (1984).
He has exhibited his work in the exhibitin ‘Rites Of Passage’ curated by Péjú Oshin (2023) in Gagosian Gallery at the Brittania Street gallery in London and the South London gallery, Capital C in Amsterdam, Firstsite in Colchester, Barnsdale Municipal Gallery in Los Angeles and CC Pounder Gallery in Los Angeles.
Femi Dawkins, about the opening night
In the process of making My Ghostly MRI's,
I channel what's inside the enslaved body and the lived experience of a life in handcuffs or the constant threat of handcuffs.
My mournful rendition of Motherless Child amidst my work was filled with vulnerability and grief.
It comes from the same place as the tears that flow like washing the bodies in perpetual quietness looking for sovereignty of purpose.
What it is like, to live a life unremarked upon, but visited by violence, for violence sake.
No one likes seeing a black man on his knees, it recalls Rodney King and many other countless and nameless bodies whipped and mashed into submission to pain death and terror.
Yet there I was circling my work, head downturned singing Motherless Child, my knees dragging across the floors of the gallery.
Each round my voice getting louder and louder.
Recalling the transatlantic voyages of past ships and lost dead souls thrown overboard without a care, and buried deep under water and in soil.
The countless nameless faces and bodies broken and thrown on beds of antebellum medical schools and experimented on and thrown in graves unmarked and unremarked without names or even a mournful peep of anyone caring. I was performing poetry as prayer. Attempting to visualize the spiritual by spirit conjuring
"Far away from home a language like a man can lose face, hang its head in shame and wither into silence. I became by loving myself, loveless motherless child."
Through sonic reflection in the form of music and poetry , in this case singing Motherless Child,
I sought a deeper engagement with the forgotten histories and the suppressed forms of diasporic memories.
The sonic presented at My Ghostly MRI solo exhibition, are the poetics of words and the visual of falling down, are all contributing to the ground swell of being present in the moments of trauma and joy, a transformation of silence and being silenced into language and action.
Of black bodies that escape like angry liquids, somewhere, to catch their breath.
the blue Vein
That vibrates
Under the surface of the black skin,
Who is talking?
From what under water
and lost country ocean
will you return me The bone and the eye
The mouth
And the sound.”
Mirror Soup Kitchen Event
Mirror Soup Kitchen organiseert een avond met soep, liederen en een film vertoning. U bent welkom om een kommetje soep mee te eten en naar bijzondere verbindende verhalen te luisteren.
Johnny Mae Hauser, Azul Ehrenberg, Aldo van den Broek | CAESURA
CAESURA //
A Perception of Silence
Group exhibition ‘Caesura’ is on view in the gallery from the 9th of February until the 16th of March.
This exhibition brings together a selection of pieces by Azul Ehrenberg, Johnny Mae Hauser and Aldo van den Broek.
In a fast paced world filled with stimuli, even the slightest perception of silence can be significantly valuable. What happens in this fleeting moment of quiet presence?
By Azul Ehrenberg. The Horse (2020), Mixed media (kozo, abaca, hemp, mesh metal), 175 x 115 x 45 cm
Azul Ehrenberg (1997) is an emerging interdisciplinary artist who graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2022, she is based between Mexico and Amsterdam. Among other projects, she showed her graduation work in the exhibition '34 ondergaande zonnen' at gallery Vriend van Bavink. In her work she dominantly uses a combination of self-made paper, visual poetry and moving image. Azul said about her work in the upcoming show: 'The works in 'CAESURA' might all together form a journey through my subconscious. The images represent moments of wandering in and out of what's real and imaginary.'
Johnny Mae Hauser (1997) is known for her sensitive ways of capturing the obscure existence of human emotion. An incomprehensible stillness can be found in her images, which are recognisable by their soft and at times cool colour schemes. The Dutch-German artist who graduated in 2022 from the KABK challenges us to see beyond the traditional ways of looking at photography. She already has several solo exhibitions on her name and is paving her way to becoming an internationally recognized artist.
Aldo van den Broek (1985) creates charged, texturized canvases and sculptures by using scrap materials that he carefully selects from the street such as cardboard, wood, fabrics, plastic, and metals. He reframes and re-contextualizes his subject and combines technical mastery with playful assemblage techniques. These resulting stills defy straightforward interpretation as he questions our fast-paced society, exploring love, death, and the existential.
Sam Andrea | Fecund Ground
Tedere punkbarok als antigif voor cynisme en polarisatie is wat Sam Andrea ons geeft in Fecund Ground. Wroeten in de aarde, vrijen, vechten en schilderen, voor Sam Andrea zijn het uitingen van levensdrift.
Ayşen Kaptanoğlu, Su Melo, Sanja Marušić, Marilyn Sonneveld, Lisette van Hoogenhuyze
In de groepsexpositie tonen 5 kunstenaars werk dat met verschillende invalshoeken de mens en het lichaam in beeld brengt. Vrouwelijke identiteit, gedrag binnen en tussen (sub)culturen, onderdrukking en persoonlijke transformatie zoals zwangerschap zijn onderwerpen die worden onderzocht.
Bart Eysink Smeets - BARTLAND
Gallery Van Fanny Freytag opent haar deuren op 6 oktober met de solo expositie ‘Bartland’ van Bart Eysink Smeets. In de expositie wordt een overzicht van het oeuvre van Bart Eysink Smeets getoond. In zijn werk speelt Bart met de verwachting van de kijker en zet hij de regels van de logica naar zijn hand. Een Citroen Picasso geparkeerd op een steen, vierkante bloemen of een zonnebank aangedreven door zonnepanelen; het kan allemaal in Bartland.