04 july 2025, Flor Linckens
BEDROCK: the art world as a living system
What do the earth beneath our feet and the art world have in common? That question lies at the heart of 'BEDROCK', an exhibition presented by Young Collectors Circle in collaboration with Amsterdam Art, on view until 5 September at Capital C in Amsterdam. The exhibition explores how artists, galleries, institutions and collectors influence one another, and how this interplay forms the foundation of a living ecosystem.
The exhibition builds on a powerful metaphor: every thriving system rests on a solid foundation. That underlying layer may appear stable, but is constantly shaped by external forces — both in nature and in the art world. What surfaces is the result of continuous transformation. The foundation offers support, but also space for development and movement, within a world that itself is constantly shifting.
One of the exhibition’s starting points is the tenth anniversary of Young Collectors Circle. For a decade now, this platform has shown that collecting art need not be elusive or reserved for the happy few. Through studio visits, masterclasses, collection tours and talks, a new generation of collectors is being introduced to contemporary art and to the people who shape that world. 'BEDROCK' reflects what can emerge from such a network: a group exhibition that makes the connections between makers and context tangible. Within this ecosystem, Young Collectors Circle positions itself as a connecting force.
What stands out is how the works on view engage with the exhibition’s themes of resistance and resilience. This is evident in the materials used, in layered images, or in subtle references to social tensions. At the same time, 'BEDROCK' offers room for personal narratives and experiment. Below, we highlight a number of artists whose work is on display in the exhibition.
Tip: on Wednesday 16 July at 7 PM, the art talk 'Collecting Art and Navigating the Scene' will take place at Capital C. In this talk, Artist Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (Galerie van Fanny Freytag), collector Luuk Hoogewerf and gallerist Martin van Vreden (tegenboschvanvreden) will explore the art ecosystem from within. They will share how art comes into being and tell us more abou the role of galleries and the position of the collector. Admission is free, please register here.
BEDROCK. Photo: David Stegenga. Work by Katarzyna Baldyga (left) and Marilyn Sonneveld (right).
Natacha Mankowski — Galerie Fleur & Wouter
Natacha Mankowski studied architecture at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, a background still clearly present in her paintings. Moving fluidly between disciplines, she uses impasto with intent, applying thick layers of paint that create a pronounced spatiality, positioning her work at the intersection of painting and sculpture.
Ricardo van Eyk + Marenne Welten — tegenboschvanvreden
Ricardo van Eyk works at the crossroads of painting, sculpture and architecture, using materials rarely employed for their original function. He incorporates mesh, lacquer, plugs and steel, draws on aluminium or grinds mirrors until the image distorts. His interventions are precise and investigative, giving familiar elements a new meaning—between construction and decay, with space for poetry.
Marenne Welten creates paintings, collages and video works that emerge from an intuitive process of remembering, letting go and reordering. Her work moves between the personal and the universal, layering oil paint to express fragments of memory—family histories, spaces, travels.. Often with shifted perspectives and distorted proportions.
Katarzyna Baldyga — Galerie Ron Mandos
Katarzyna Baldyga graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2024 and won that year’s Ron Mandos Young Blood Award, which led to her work entering the collection of Museum Voorlinden. Her intuitive approach combines painting, printing and rearrangement to create images that sit between abstraction and recognition, inviting a sensory, open-ended way of looking.
Sam Andrea — Gallery Vriend van Bavink
Sam Andrea paints scenes full of corporeality, desire and destruction, balancing between the personal and the grotesque. His work is rooted in queer nightlife and underground culture, fusing baroque drama with a raw immediacy. His figures often exist on the edge of pathos and absurdity.
Juliette Blightman — Galerie Fons Welters
Juliette Blightman captures moments from her own life in images that oscillate between the personal and the shared. In her "Firework series", she uses fireworks as a metaphor for artists — especially women — who resist the idea of the heteronormative traditional family and continued to work, often within domestic spaces. Like firework trajectories, their paths follow no predetermined route.
Guy Vording — galerie dudokdegroot
In his newest work, Guy Vording explores themes of transience, grief and solitude, expanding on his earlier "Black Pages" series. Starting from found imagery, he creates layered screen prints that give visual form to memory and loss.
Steven Aalders — Slewe Gallery
Steven Aalders makes geometrically abstract paintings in which colour, rhythm and proportion are meticulously calibrated. With great precision he evokes light and space, linking modernist principles to reflections on time and place.
Thijs Segers — Galerie Fontana
Thijs Segers paints quiet scenes where transience and the longing for stability meet. Drawing from personal places and observations, his work moves between inner experience and the external world.
Jaehun Park + Katrin Korfmann — Bradwolff & Partners
Katrin Korfmann examines how images function within visual culture. She reshapes everyday public scenes into carefully composed moments, marked by both movement and stillness. With a keen sense of structure and rhythm, she captures the social dynamics of daily life in images that reference both collective visual memory and social structures.
Jaehun Park works with 3D scans and hyperrealistic rendering to remove objects from their original context and place them in digital rituals, layered with symbolism. His simulated worlds reveal a reality where desire, guilt and consumption are closely intertwined.
Jan Kuhlemeier — Brandt Gallery
Jan Kuhlemeier explores how colour behaves in relation to rhythm, movement and material. His work emerges from pre-defined gestures and shows how painting can serve as a way to translate the rhythms and impressions of the outside world into image.
The exhibition also includes work by Marilyn Sonneveld (No Man’s Art Gallery), Laura Hospes (LANG), Yang-Ha and Geraldo dos Santos (Josilda da Conceição Gallery), Ed van der Elsken (Annet Gelink Gallery) and Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (Gallery van Fanny Freytag).
The exhibition 'BEDROCK' will be on view until 5 September at Capital C in Amsterdam. Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 21:00. Admission is free. Interested in one of the works? Get in touch with Nadine van den Bosch from Young Collectors Circle.
The exhibition is made possible by Young Collectors Circle, Amsterdam Art and Capital C Amsterdam, in collaboration with the participating galleries.
