MIKO VELDKAMP





Two FishermEn
2019
oil on canvas, 36x24inch.






Description / Statement

I embrace all three of my national identities: American, Dutch, Surinamese. My Asian-White-Caribbean ethnicity is met with different expectations in all three places. There is no coherence within any dominant framework of identity. Yet, I refuse to see being in between places as being half, it’s double. When I speak two languages, I am bi-lingual, not semi-lingual. My paintings represent daily life scenes from an imaginary place where all my personal memories exist in one location. With an excess of identity markers, they destabilize identity, and propose multiplicity instead. They describe an experience of self that can only be understood lyrically, specifically. They care for interconnections, not in any logical way, but poetically. They have the ability to suggest a lot with just a few brushstrokes. They are fluent, meaning it is spoken with from within. Lyricism means vulnerability, playfulness, inventiveness and meandering thoughts, and is anti-postmodern and anti-totalitarian.



Bio

Miko Veldkamp was born in Surinam, grew up in The Netherlands and has been painting mostly in the United States. His work has been shown internationally in places such as Galerie Rianne Groen in Rotterdam, Poppostions in Brussels, Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo, The Lewis Center for the Arts in Princeton, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. He was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, and a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. His work has been selected for Artmaze Magazine, and New American Paintings. He is currently in the Hunter College MFA program, in New York, projected to graduate in Spring '21.





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