Van Ommeren - De Voogt Prijs 2024
During the annual members' exhibition, the Autumn Salon, three artists are always nominated for the Van Ommeren - De Voogt Prize. In addition to the prize money of €5,000 for the winner, the Van Ommeren - De Voogt Foundation offers the two nominees and the winner an exhibition each year, in which they present their work together. In January, nominees Fathel Neema and Aldrik Sluis will show their work together with prize winner Sytske de Jong.
Nominee Aldrik Sluis translates the (dune) landscape naturalistically on different sizes of oil on canvas, based on observation, memory and imagination in his studio. His paintings thus become reflections of a particular place and the experience of presence in the landscape. In addition to these contemplative landscapes, he occasionally creates a series of full-size nature still lifes directly from observation. Here, the image is translated solely from what he perceives, without the influence of memory.
Nominee Fathel Neema trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad. In the Netherlands, he then completed a course at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague and obtained a postgraduate degree in graphic techniques. Fathel creates expressionist works. He knows no rest and his work is a permanent search for form, colour and content. As an artist, he is marked by the spirit of the times and by what he has experienced. Neema is not content with the style and ready-made models of the past.
In the hands of the winner of the 2024 Van Ommeren - De Voogt Prize, Sytske de Jong, materials such as stone and paper are transformed into sculptures that explore the limits of their physicality. The hard stone seems malleable or fluid, although it never becomes transparent. Her paper works reveal structures hidden in stone, like fragile ‘shadows’ of hard images. Sytske's abstract forms, often inspired by the human body, are reduced to their essence and invite touch, both visually and physically. Her work combines inspiration from natural structures with a sensory and sensual approach, where head, heart and hands come together in her search for beauty and stillness.