Jan van der Ploeg

Jan van der Ploeg (b. Amsterdam, Netherlands), graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (Amsterdam) and Croydon College of Art (London) before being selected as a resident artist at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Working across large-scale wall paintings and editioned works on paper, Van der Ploeg’s paintings are characterized by their recognisable graphic vocabulary and expansive use of colour. Placing pressure on a reduced lexicon of recurring simple forms, van der Ploeg uses shifts in rhythm, repetition and tone to achieve an array of effects. Leaning in to the formal mores of the typographic medium, his wall paintings and works on paper elicit vibrant exchanges of sensation rather than the fixed transaction of language.

Van der Ploeg’s work has been exhibited extensively in both solo and group exhibitions in Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In 1999 van der Ploeg founded the artist-run PS projectspace gallery in Amsterdam. Selected solo exhibitions include: Hammer Museum (Los Angeles); MOMA PS1 (New York); Kunsthaus Basel; Kunstverein Heilbronn (Heilbronn); Von Bartha (Basel); Minus Space (New York); Sikkema Jenkins (New York); City Gallery Wellington; Taubert Contemporary (Berlin); Shane Campbell Gallery (Chicago); Dunedin Public Art Gallery; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam); Kunstmuseum Den Haag (The Hague), and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). Recent group exhibitions include: Delighting the World at Mies Van der Rohe Haus for the centenary of Bauhaus; Dashper, van der Ploeg & Walters at Sumer Gallery (Tauranga); Julian Dashper and Friends, City Gallery Wellington; Peinture en Promo, Musée Jurassien des Arts (Moutier); Galerie Klaus Braun (Stuttgart);Grounds for Optimism, Tremenheere Gallery (Penzance); Fields of Joy, PARK (Tilburg) with Piet Dieleman and Beat Zoderer. In 1990 van der Ploeg was awarded the Royal Award for Modern Painting.