André de Jong: New York Diary (Photography Series)

Hailed by Amsterdam’s Het Parool:
“[André de Jong's] drawings and assemblages
are both monumental and delicate. A discovery.”
André de Jong has been taking photographs of nature and his environments to serve as a basis for other work forms and independently. During his ten-day stay in New York, May 9-20, 2015, he took over 2000 photographs while exploring the city. He was responding, as he put it, to his “first time impressions of the New York jungle.”
Nine Giclée pigment prints of the resulting New York Series — meticulously executed on Hahnemühle rag paper— reflect the form and anatomy of New York City just as articulated and surprising as André de Jong’s Folds of cracked paper.
About the Artist:
André de Jong is a Dutch artist celebrated for his monumental black and white drawings and three dimensional Folds. He was born in 1945 and studied at Art Academy in Maastricht. After finishing the Academy, De Jong moved north and continues to
live in Friesland. De Jong’s long periods of working in relative isolation have been punctuated by regular exploratory trips abroad, particularly to Iceland and
Norway, which provided an important inspiration for
his work as painter and draftsman.Recognizing the importance of de Jong’s query of
man and nature, Han Steenbruggen, Director of the Museum Belvédère in Heerenveen, the Netherlands, dedicated the museum’s central space to his solo
show in 2010. From the first drawings and photographs in the catalogue, de Jong’s oeuvre unfolds with uncanny beauty and master-ful draftsmanship, which leave little doubt of this modest man’s place in the top echelons of contemporary art, next to Pierre
Soulages, Annette Messager, Giuseppe Penone, and Georg Baselitz, to name but a few.