JCJ Vanderheyden

JCJ Vanderheyden (1928-2012) is considered one of the most significant post-war painters in the Netherlands. Since participating in the Documenta in Kassel in 1982 his work has been exhibited in various prominent museums, including the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, where he had a solo exhibition in 2001. In the early 1970s, he was a lecturer at the Jan van Eyck Academie where, with his students, he undertook the first experiments with video and sound equipment.

JCJ Vanderheyden studied at the Akademie voor Kunst en Vormgeving St Joost in 's Hertogenbosch and the Jan van Eyck academy in Maastricht. In 1956 he settles in his birthtown 's Hertogenbosch, where he starts his artistic career as a painter of abstract works, whilst CoBrA was popular. Vanderheyden was interested in examining the basic principles of painting while simultaniously studying our perception. He painted and experimented with a wide range of media such as photography, printing and video. Between 1964 and 1975 he experimented with film, computergraphics, electronic acoustics, and time. He was in close contact with Leon Adriaans and Richard Menken and their "zware Van Nelle club".

In the seventies Vanderheyden focussed on photography, graphic printing, video, television and media, fascinated by the reproduction of his own reality. He reproduced his own work and work from other artists such as Jeroen Bosch, Pieter Breugel and Velasquez. In his studio he constructed installations which he then photographed.

In the eighties Vanderheyden worked on the construction of closed installations in which he showed his fragmented work. Combining images from the past and present Vanderheyden was searching for meaningful relationships between time and space.

JCJ Vanderheyden is well known for his 'horizon' and 'checkerboard' paintings in which he studies phenomena such as light, space, time and perception.