14 october 2024, Wouter van den Eijkel
2024 Royal Award for Modern Painting
Artists Faria Van Creij-Callender, Shivangi Kalra and Tobias Thaens were presented with the Royal Award for Modern Painting from King Willem-Alexander last Thursday in Amsterdam. At the Royal Palace on Dam Square, the winners were each awarded a cash prize of 9,000 euros.
The jury, chaired by Mirjam Westen (curator of contemporary art at Museum Arnhem), received 483 submissions, a dozen fewer than last year. Over 3,100 works were reviewed. Thirty artists were asked to submit two paintings for the second round and 15 ultimately made the shortlist. In the coming month, work by both the winners and nominated artists will be on display at the Royal Palace on Dam Square.
The Royal Award for Modern Painting, along with the Prix de Rome, is the oldest art award for up-and-coming young visual artists living in the Netherlands. The award was established in 1871 as the ‘Subsidy for Free Painting’ by King William III. Each year, the award is presented to three artists under the age of 35, each of whom receives 9,000 euros. In his speech, His Majesty the King emphasised the importance of individuality and autonomy in art. “It is always exciting to see how young artists find their own path and strive to define their individual signature. Originality, autonomy and innovation are important values in art,” the King said.
Based on the submissions, the paths taken by artists are becoming increasingly diverse. While the majority of entries are still figurative, the jury notes in its report that it received more abstract work this year than in previous years. The jury also recognised in this generation of painters the desire to choose the timeless medium of painting, with its tactile surfaces, despite a world filled with digital screens.
This diversity is evident in the various themes, styles, methods and materials used. For instance, in the expressionist works of Eline Boerma, the paint nearly leaps off the canvas. Thick layers of paint appear to have been applied with great force. Vicente Baeza’s space-filling installations are composed of porous layers of cardboard and wallpaper, which at first glance appear monochrome, but contain minute traces of his personal life, such as rings left by paint pots or glasses.
Special recognition goes to Dion Rosina, who made the shortlist for the third year in a row. This year, he submitted larger canvases than in previous years. His work resembles collages featuring references to important figures and historical events, combined with symbolic elements like a lotus flower.
Among the figurative submissions, the jury noted recurring themes like nature and landscapes, which encapsulate memories or centre on the theme of transience, as seen in the subdued, earthy-toned work of Thijs Segers. In Het land van ooit, we see a former backyard of Segers. For Portuguese artist Tiago Santos, memories of places and events from his youth play a crucial role. To him, painting is a way to bring distant things closer again. In Árvore do Amigo (Friend’s Tree), we see the planting of a tree in memory of a friend. The view is partially obstructed by plants and the tree, but the predominantly grey depiction of a group of men staring at the ground is deeply moving. You immediately understand the essence of the work. The narrative scenes of Daniel Cabrillos Jacobsen reflect memories of ancestors and their knowledge of herbal medicine.
The winners
Faria van Creij-Callender (1998) graduated from the KABK last year. Her canvases depict female figures assembled from various images. In her work, she endeavours to give deeper meaning to the characters, while also expressing her Surinamese-Dutch identity.
This layering is evident in the work The 24th of August (2024), with its strikingly large jewellery and tattoo of a horse on the arm of a Black woman sitting on grass. The woman appears relaxed, yet because of the perspective, takes on almost monumental proportions. “A Black woman doesn’t need to be portrayed with a specific purpose or in an active pose to justify her presence in art,” says Van Creij-Callender.
Indian artist Shivangi Kalra (1998) moved from Delhi to Groningen two years ago, where she earned a master’s degree at the Frank Mohr Institute in 2024. The jury praised the paintings in which Kalra invites the viewer’s eye to enter her dreamlike, surreal world.
In her colourful work, Kalra creates a sense of alienation by transforming familiar spaces like a living room into a new reality. “I’ve been painting more from memory and have come to embrace the confusion that can arise from it,” Kalra explains in the accompanying interview. This confusion takes shape in a work like And nobody said anything in which a tiger-skin rug suddenly comes to life and appears to attack the otherwise faceless figures sitting on the couch. All this is seen from the viewpoint of a girl in the foreground.
Tobias Thaens (1999) earned his bachelor’s degree in Fine Art Painting in Enschede and spent 2022-2023 at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. In his work, figurative and abstract elements, as well as nature and culture, blend seamlessly, as if sharp contrasts have been replaced by flowing lines, sensitivity and vulnerability. On the canvas, this translates into matte, translucent layers in which shapes and surfaces merge.
“Painting is like a love letter to a chaotic way of perceiving in which curiosity and sensitivity dominate,” says Thaens. In By the Kiss, Thaens demonstrates the perfect balance between emotion and composition. The jury was particularly impressed by the “convincing and poetic manner” in which Thaens captures refined sensitivity in his work.
