Biography

Jeroen Kooijmans is a Dutch artist. In 1995 he graduated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Since then he has lived, worked and exhibited in many places all over het world. Currently his home base is in Amsterdam.

Jeroen’s films and video installations are characterised by a crystal-clear and poetic visual language. In it, current affairs and everyday life are interconnected with the mythical world of paintings, fairy tales and feature films. Recurring themes are the flow and cycle of time, utopia and religion. In his films people are disguised as abstract, symbolic creatures that move in a prominently present and meaningful landscape: lakes, forests, the sea, meadows.

The fundamental nature of Kooijmans’ work is optimistic, yet the dark side of life is not ignored. Wonderfully simple films exist alongside complex installations of video projections combined with sound and architectural elements. Moreover, architecture has its own place in his oeuvre. Kooijmans’ projects Floating Gardens, Hanging Houses and Folding Houses were adopted by Winy Maas from MVRDV, the Dutch controversial architecture firm that Kooijmans works with on a regular basis.

In 1998 Jeroen Kooijmans was awarded the NPS Cultuurprijs and in 2007 he won the Impakt Beam System Award. In 2001/2001 he was part of The International Studio Program of the PS1/MoMa in New York. As artist in residence Kooijmans was associated with the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture in 2010. In 2013/2014 he worked as artist in residence with the Instituto Buena Bista Curaçao.