Emo Verkerk

Emo Verkerk belongs to a generation of Dutch artists, together with René Daniels and Marlène Dumas, among others, who were unwilling to proclaim the death of painting but who, quite contrarily, explored new possibilities and significances within the medium itself. In the meantime, Emo Verkerk can look back on a career that spans more than 30 years in which he has been in and out of public interest.

Emo Verkerk’s oeuvre consists of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and assemblages. Through his interests and passions, he has reinterpreted the significance of painting in a very personal way, without necessarily using the artistic dogma of ‘innovation’ as his starting point. His inspiration comes from many different sources: from life stories of known and lesser-known people he is fascinated with, but also from his environment.

This exhibition brings together a very subjective choice of paintings and sculptures from the period between 1993 and 2009. It was never the intention to work in a retrospective manner, but to present the very surprising and eclectic palette of possibilities the artist draws from throughout his oeuvre.