Justin Wijers
Justin Wijers (1981) draws victims of violence and traffic accidents he finds on the Internet. With a fine jellyroller pen he depicts the battered bodies in thin, precise lines. The bodies are only partly coloured in and their contours are very lightly sketched on the white surface of the paper. At first sight they look like abstract areas of colour or islands on a map in a white sea. After these predominantly lineair works he starts writing texts and drawing small flowers, animals and pictograms in bright, beautiful colours on the bodies and the stains around them. With care and great eye for detail Justin Wijers fills in the bodies, almost as a tender last homage to these victims that circulate anonimously on the internet.
The observer first loses himself in the beautiful colours and the many details, until the total form of the body emerges. In this way Justin Wijers confronts us with the raw reality we are faced with in the media every day, but from which we normally seclude ourselves. After the works in feltpen and pencil Justin Wijers starts to experiment with fluorescent paint and glow in the dark gel with which he writes hidden texts that pop up in the dark. In his most recent work he confronts neutral, and intact objects like a house or an airship with the mutilated dead bodies. He thus seems to emphasize the divide between our comfortable everyday life and the atrocities that take place elsewhere in the world.
| 1981 | Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
education | |
| 2000-2004 | Willem de Kooning Academie, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
| lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands | |
solo exhibitions | |
| 2010 | Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague, The Netherlands |
| 2002 | De oplichterij, Rotterdam |
group exhibitions | |
| 2012 | RSCOPE Miami, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Miami, Florida USA SCOPE Basel, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Basel, Switzerland RE:Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands The Lure of Evil, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague, The Netherlands |
| 2011 | The Draughtmans’s Contract, Cypres Galerie, Leuven, Belgium Galerie Maurits van de Laar (with Marie Civikov), The Hague, The Netherlands TWENTY, 20 years Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague, The Netherlands |
| 2010 | Daire hosts Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Galeri Daire Tophane, Istanbul, Turkey Contemporary Istanbul 2010, Istanbul, Turkey SCOPE Basel, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Basel, Switzerland Salon du Dessin Contemporain, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Caroussel du Louvre, Paris, France Art Rotterdam, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
| 2009 | Art Rotterdam, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Faux frères & … …, Galerie In Situ, Aalst, Belgium |
| 2008 | Nieuw Rotterdams Peil, Grote kerk, Emmen, The Netherlands Something and Something Else, Museum van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, The Netherlands Tekeningen 8, Quartair, The Hague, The Netherlands Redefining the enemy, Tent, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague, The Netherlands |
| 2007 | Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague (with Erzsébet Baerveldt), The Netherlands Art Amsterdam, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Netherlands |
| 2006 | 1st Shift, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague, The Netherlands Tekeningen, Galerie Maurits van de Laar, The Hague, The Netherlands |
| 2005 | Galerie Blaak 10, Rotterdam, The Netherlands CBK, Rotterdam, The Netherlands World Trade Centre, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Ministerie van OCW, Den Haag, The Netherlands |
| 2004 | De Aanschouw, Rotterdam, The Netherlands TENT, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Shell Young Art Award, Kunsthal, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
| 2003 | Travel/Travail, TENT, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Bugatti/Verlat Prijs, Blijdorp, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Variaties in Vlees, Galerie Herenplaats, Rotterdam, The Netherlands |
awards, grants | |
| 2008 | Basisstipendium Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam |
| 2005 | Startstipendium Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam |
| 2004 | kandidaat Maaskantprijs publieksprijs Shell Young Art Award Shell Young Art Award, 2e prijs Allianz Grafiekprijs, 1e prijs |
| 2003 | kandidaat Bugatti/Verlat prijs |