Martijn Schuppers (1967)
The complex paintings of Martijn Schuppers are created using acrylic alkyds and oils. Through the judicious application of solvents and ongoing use of a screen, Schuppers rearranges the various paints in order to allow images to appear. In the Pentimenti installations he additionally works with UV-licht, commonly referred to as black light.This results in a critical examination—the art of painting with painting itself as the subject. As art historian and writer Frank Reijnders puts it: “Realism in the works of Schuppers exists only due to his painterly imagination. Reality is not so much imitated as it is called out, and surpassed. The illusion has shifted. Although the illusion in Schuppers' work remains present while distant thanks to the paint, the aura of his work is thoroughly contemporary high-tech. The latter is mainly due to the fluorescent use of color, which is inspired not by the light of nature or a religious glow from above, but rather by the artificial light of monitors. "
Martijn Schuppers attended Academie Minerva in Groningen, continuing his studies at Hunter College in New York and the Frank Mohr instituut in Groningen. In 2006 his first solo museum exhibition, Unisono 14: The Nature of Painting, opened in the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Two years later he jointly presented work with Koen Taselaar during the Solo Projects, a side fair of Art Basel. He has also taken part in a range of notable exhibitions in German art institutes. His work was also presented in the solo exhibition Pentimenti in het Museum für Gegenstandsfreier Kunst in Otterndorf (DE). Martijn Schuppers’s work can be found in national and international museums, including the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam en the Centraal Museum Utrecht. His work is included in the art collections of AKZO Nobel, Aegon, Gasunie, LUMC en Rijnstate. In 2005 Schuppers carried out a prestigious commission for one of the meeting halls of the Raad voor de Rechtspraak in Den Haag. Earlier this spring, he was featured as a member of the group exhibition Uit Zicht in het CBK Emmen, which also included work by Berndnaut Smilde, among others.