Jonathan van Doornum

Jonathan van Doornum is a visual artist who works mainly in the media sculpture and installation. His work can be seen as a sculptural reaction on society in moving times. The carefully selected social, cultural and historical references in his work are translated in techniques and shape. Hereby he slowly creates a body of works that makes cross references in time and space. In a playful way he uses recognizable objects in an unexpected context. The media of sculpture is ideally suited for his need to reflect on the physical world and the different objects that define it. His visual language is being formed by constructing all of the elements in his sculptures by himself. Therefore, materiality and craftsmanship are matters of great importance to him. Many of his works have an urge to escape. Besides escaping, this can also be seen as an act of reaching out and connecting. His work questions identity and searches for ways of communicating it. This has let to a very diverse sculptural body of works.

“My works are built up as paintings. Layer by layer, form and content are added. Cultural and historical references are interspersed with functional elements. A key aspect of my work is the capacity of combining reflection and poetic expression.”

Van Doornum participated in several artist-in-residencies, among them are the Rijksakademie and Wiels. He participated in several group shows in The Netherlands and abroad. Van Doornum’s solo exhibition included, PARK – Tilburg, DASH – Kortrijk and Wiels – Brussels.

His work is kindly supported by the Mondriaan Fund (Stipendium for Established Artists 2018-2022)

Marcus Lütkemeyer, curator Schloss Ringenberg:

“Jonathan van Doornum works as a sculptor by extension. Although on a first glance his artworks  might remind of fragments of well known figurations, nameable motives or could occur as even more alluring  or sometimes also ‘inscrutable’ objects  it is less about giving a shape to a visible ‘thing’ than shaping an almost abstract process of materialization into an image. This paradoxical issue, first of  all, depends on the material itself – because what he uses to be forced into form already is artificial in itself: cheap compressed wood and wood-like mixtures. Nothing is as it appears – a general  philosophical term, however in case of Jonathan van Doornum without hiding the key of a more sensual generating of knowledge that put stock in the range of opportunities of individual perception. Somehow the pieces of Jonathan van Doornum are similar to sublime objects, precisely this kind of bject that is raised to the dignity of ‘thing’: An ordinary, everyday object that undergoes an act of transubstantiation. For this reason, the sublime  object features the paradox of an object that can exist only in the shade, in an intermediate, half-born state, as something latent. Or even simpler: It is like a squid that is a highly effective and sonsy creature inside the water, however outside it is only a lump of slime. In regard to the sublime objects, if we try to eliminate the shadows in order to obtain the substance as soon as it comes fully to light (out of the water), it dissolves, and all that remains in our hands is the slime of a burst bubble – the material granulates back to its ingredients and nothing else.”