Either Way
Jan Maarten Voskuil & Martijn Schuppers
Opening
Saturday 21 March 15:00–17:00
This exhibition runs until
21 March – 26 April 2026
Exhibition statement
NL=US Art on Mauritsweg in Rotterdam presents the exhibition “Either Way” by Martijn Schuppers and Jan Maarten Voskuil from 21 March to 26 April. The exhibition is based on the realization that Schuppers and Voskuil, starting from the same artistic inquiry, ultimately took opposite directions. For both artists this inquiry began in the late 1980s with naturalistic painting and the question of how, as an artist, one could still give meaning to that medium. The depiction of reality was the first thing both artists quickly abandoned. What remained was the painting itself, consisting of the stretcher frame with canvas on the one hand and the paint on the other.
Schuppers’ turn was toward the paint itself — the pictorial space, the surface of paint. For his paint manipulations he uses unconventional techniques. With solvents he affects applied layers and then moves the dissolved paint in a process-based way. Through this detour, illusionistic (photo)realistic paintings seem to emerge again — of… well, of what actually?
Voskuil’s turn concerns the stretcher frame and the painter’s canvas, the physical space of the painting. He manipulates the stretcher frame into a three-dimensional construction that he subsequently stretches with canvas. In this way he creates a undulating surface with an organic character. Whereas painting for him previously consisted of depicting the world using light and dark (chiaroscuro) and perspective, he has replaced imitation with actual space and with real effects of shadow and light. He often uses these spatial paintings as modules with which he constructs a new, abstract world.
About the artists
Jan Maarten Voskuil (Arnhem 1964) studied Arts and Humanities at the University of Groningen (MA 1989) and completed the postgraduate program at the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem, the Ateliers Arnhem (1997). He lives and works in Bergschenhoek and Saint Cernin de Labarde (France). His work is represented in numerous public and private collections in the Netherlands and abroad, including: Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen (DE); Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch; Stedelijk Museum Schiedam; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; The Richard Adam Gallery, Brno (CZ); Geometric Madi Museum, Dallas (USA); Frans Hals Museum / De Hallen, Haarlem; and Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar.
Martijn Schuppers (Almelo 1967) studied at Academie Minerva in Groningen (1995) and at Hunter College in New York, and received his MFA from the Frank Mohr Institute (2000). He lives and works in Hoogezand and teaches at Academie Minerva in Groningen. He has completed several artist-in-residence programs (New York, Düsseldorf and Berlin). Schuppers’ work is included in numerous public and private collections in the Netherlands and abroad, including: Centraal Museum Utrecht, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Museum für gegenstandsfreie Kunst Otterndorf (DE), AkzoNobel Art Foundation, AEGON Art Collection and the ABN AMRO Art Collection. His work is represented by Galerie Wolfgang Jahn in Munich (DE).