Jasper de Beijer

Amsterdam-based artist Jasper de Beijer’s conceptual series of photographs each engages with a specific historical period or event. He uses visual databases such as postcards, newspapers, or commercial photography, to analyze the media detritus of historical moments such as Dutch colonialism in the East Indies, Western views of Africa, or the Industrial Revolution. After careful research and trips to the place of his focus, he creates and photographs large-scale models made of drawn material and constructed bodies, environments, and ephemera, giving the resulting images a dreamlike quality. Using body casts, studio lighting, and both hand-drawn and scanned or manipulated imagery, de Beijer warps the divide between drawing, photography, and sculpture. In creating these scenes, de Beijer aims to engage the ways we understand images of historical significance. The resulting photos are both powerfully complex and eerily familiar.

Jasper de Beijer attended the Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, and the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht. He has exhibited widely throughout Europe and the United States. De Beijer has an upcoming retrospective solo exhibition at the Museum Rijswijk (Fall 2021), and is a recipient of the 2020 Agnes van den Brandeler Museum Prize. Previous solo exhibitions include: The Center Photographique Rouen, France; Flatland Gallery, Netherlands; Wiels Museum, Netherlands; The Hague Museum of Photography, Netherlands; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver; Museum Het Domein in Sittard, Netherlands; the Museum de Hallen Haarlem, Netherlands; Galerie Nouvelles Images, The Hague, Netherlands; TZR Galerie Kai Brückner, Dusseldorf, Germany; Hamish Morisson Gallery, Berlin, Germany; The Empire Project, Istanbul, Turkey; and Studio d'Arte Cannaviello, Milano. He has particiapted in group exhibitions at Art Brussels, PAN Amsterdam, Photo Basel, and Paris Photo. De Beijer’s work has taken him to residencies at the Centre Photographique in Rouen, France; the Pompgemaal Den Helder Residency in Amsterdam, Netherlands; WIELS Institute in Brussels; The Instituto Buena Bista in Curaçao; and Kamiyama AIR in Japan. He is part of a large number of collections, including The Bank of America Collection, Collection Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, and the Rabo Art Collection, Utrecht. His work has been reviewed by Het Parool, The Woven Tale Press Magazine, Vice Magazine, The New York Observer, Artnet News, and Time Out New York, among numerous others.