PEPIJN VAN DEN NIEUWENDIJK
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Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk is a multidisciplinary artist known for his vibrant and detailed works in illustration, painting, and ceramics. Pepijn’s creations, blend diverse cultural influences, featuring colorful and intricate paintings, drawings, and ceramic sculptures depicting dressed mice, owls, Chinese dragons, and fantastical creatures.
His imaginary world is a world where Cute Monsters are made in huge Monster factories, and where Mammoths go on parade, where Dodo’s are time travelers, owls are night bombers, and where humans play only a marginal role. It is a whimsical personal realm reminiscent of fairy tales and comic strips. Although often full of with humor, they possess a deeper, more profound meaning rooted in historical narratives and stories. Van den Nieuwendijk’s appreciation for blue and white Delftware ceramics and Chinese porcelain has brought him to China. First in the historic city of Jingdezhen, and more recently in the small pottery town of Anfu, Chongqing (2023).
In the recent work of Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk he investigates the complex nature of sleep and the night. He takes inspiration from the discovery of the baby mammoth Lyuba in Siberia, which seemed perfectly preserved sleeping in the permafrost. Lyuba probably died from drowning in mud, out of sight of her mother, making her apparently peaceful sleep an illusion. The night brings a mixture of menace, nightmares and the awakening of creatures that normally remain hidden, such as the ‘monsters under the bed’. The night skies and the own non-existent reality in which these scenes take place give the feeling of a parallel world that seems to exist side by side with the real world.
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Exhibitions at Galerie Nasty Alice: Solo 2023 . Pretty Petite 2020 . Stranger Things 2019 . Appèl Galeries 2019 . Fiesta 2018 . Rotterdam Contemporary 2017 . KunstRAI 2015 . Rotterdam Contemporary 2015 . The Big Art Clash 2014 . ARTWAR 2013 . DWARS 2013 . Preview 2012 .