“As a little boy I liked to draw adventures. If the paper turned out to be too small, I would stick an extra sheet to it. And then another one. Nowadays I make film and photo installations. I dream of large projects where people can walk through the projections and images. In a sense, I’m still the little boy who makes drawings of stories that run outside the magazine.“
Julius Rooymans grew up in an artist’s nest in a village near Amsterdam. His father was a painter, mother a sculptor. He learned from his parents to never choose the easy way. If you need something for your project, you have to do it. His father regularly had to choose between buying food or linen to paint on. That is the side of art that Julius saw from an early age: self-sacrifice, enthusiasm. Put financial security and health at risk for your productions.
“I stretch the dividing line between reality and fantasy: how much friction fits in an image before the viewer becomes aware of it? Your own eyes solve my photos.“
His work caught on after the Rietveld Academy. He received assignments for international advertising agencies and magazines, made covers for Newsweek and The New York Times, did shoots from helicopters over Africa and stood on skyscrapers in America.
“Registering the photographic reality doesn’t grab me, I love compelling great stories.”
“As a little boy I liked to draw adventures. If the paper turned out to be too small, I would stick an extra sheet to it. And then another one. Nowadays I make film and photo installations. I dream of large projects where people can walk through the projections and images. In a sense, I’m still the little boy who makes drawings of stories that run outside the magazine.“
Julius Rooymans grew up in an artist’s nest in a village near Amsterdam. His father was a painter, mother a sculptor. He learned from his parents to never choose the easy way. If you need something for your project, you have to do it. His father regularly had to choose between buying food or linen to paint on. That is the side of art that Julius saw from an early age: self-sacrifice, enthusiasm. Put financial security and health at risk for your productions.
“I stretch the dividing line between reality and fantasy: how much friction fits in an image before the viewer becomes aware of it? Your own eyes solve my photos.“
His work caught on after the Rietveld Academy. He received assignments for international advertising agencies and magazines, made covers for Newsweek and The New York Times, did shoots from helicopters over Africa and stood on skyscrapers in America.
“Registering the photographic reality doesn’t grab me, I love compelling great stories.”
The reality, Julius doesn’t have much to do with it. He wants to tell stories and likes to polish up reality a bit. His work often consists of manipulated situations: merged images, montages and films that can be seen on overwhelmingly large, meter-high and wide canvases or prints. “I tell little fairy tales with my work.” He likes big and impossible. No better motivation than someone who claims that something is not possible. There are no restrictions. Recurring elements in the work: masks, turns, reflections, contrasts: black-and-white, oldyoung, front becomes rear and bottom comes up. The classic frame is broken and enriched, by also showing the back of a photo, or photographing a production upside down. Reality is unmasked, or on the contrary gets a mask. The two-dimensionality is broken by playing with the question of what is shown outside the square frame. His work breaks the standard and dismantles the surface, tells about another world. Viewers are like a ballet dancer who has turned too many pirouettes: the image is discolored, perverted, appears to be incorrect, but at the same time looks fabulous. That is the essence of the work: wonder. The pleasure with which a story is told, playing impossibilities.
Julius Rooymans – The Shadow of the Master
10 March – 14 May 2022
Wanrooij Gallery in Amsterdam presents a solo exhibition of the Dutch photographer Julius Rooymans from 10 March until 14 May 2022. The gallery shows with The Shadow of the Master a new series of monumental artworks and portraits. Paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Jan Steen come alive. The layered images, full of scenes and symbolism, reflect the Golden Age in an extra large format.
Artist Julius Rooymans is a passionate storyteller with a fascination for history and large projects. In 2019 he realized the project Nightwatch360 – The Other Side of Art, a photographic reconstruction with lookalikes and a fictitious backside of the iconic painting by Rembrandt, that is exhibited in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.
In the new art project The Shadow of the Master, the works of world-famous Dutch master painters come together and the dark sides of artistry are highlighted such as love, self-irony, poverty, sadness and misfortune. As with the Nightwatch360, 180 lookalikes were sought for this project who resemble their predecessors 350 years older.
Thanks to the cooperation of renowned institutions such as Allard Pierson, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Museum Vrolik and well-known collectors and antique dealers, the photographic works show numerous original objects, crockery, weapons and sets. With the expertise and unbridled dedication of craftsmen such as make-up artist Arjen van der Grijn, costume designer Catherine Cuykens and art historian Marieke de Winkel, the costumes, jewelry and hairpieces are historically accurate down to the smallest detail.
Julius Rooymans grew up in an artist family and studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. He is a photographer for almost 25 years and made covers for Newsweek and The New York Times. The autonomous work of the visual artist has been presented at art fairs such as Art Miami and KunstRAI and is included in the collections of private collectors and companies. Rooymans lives and works in Amsterdam.
In addition to the exhibition at Wanrooij Gallery, The Shadow of the Master is on permanent display at the AFAS Theatre in Leusden. Five painters are central here: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan Steen, Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondriaan. Eyecatcher is an Anatomical Theatre of 22 metres wide. There is also a making-of documentary about the art project and an audio tour with art-historical background information. The AFAS Theatre is organizing an event with the presentation of the photographic artworks on three dates: 26 March, 23 April and 21 May.
www.juliusrooymans.nl
The reality, Julius doesn’t have much to do with it. He wants to tell stories and likes to polish up reality a bit. His work often consists of manipulated situations: merged images, montages and films that can be seen on overwhelmingly large, meter-high and wide canvases or prints. “I tell little fairy tales with my work.” He likes big and impossible. No better motivation than someone who claims that something is not possible. There are no restrictions. Recurring elements in the work: masks, turns, reflections, contrasts: black-and-white, oldyoung, front becomes rear and bottom comes up. The classic frame is broken and enriched, by also showing the back of a photo, or photographing a production upside down. Reality is unmasked, or on the contrary gets a mask. The two-dimensionality is broken by playing with the question of what is shown outside the square frame. His work breaks the standard and dismantles the surface, tells about another world. Viewers are like a ballet dancer who has turned too many pirouettes: the image is discolored, perverted, appears to be incorrect, but at the same time looks fabulous. That is the essence of the work: wonder. The pleasure with which a story is told, playing impossibilities.
Julius Rooymans – The Shadow of the Master
10 March – 14 May 2022
Wanrooij Gallery in Amsterdam presents a solo exhibition of the Dutch photographer Julius Rooymans from 10 March until 14 May 2022. The gallery shows with The Shadow of the Master a new series of monumental artworks and portraits. Paintings of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Jan Steen come alive. The layered images, full of scenes and symbolism, reflect the Golden Age in an extra large format.
Artist Julius Rooymans is a passionate storyteller with a fascination for history and large projects. In 2019 he realized the project Nightwatch360 – The Other Side of Art, a photographic reconstruction with lookalikes and a fictitious backside of the iconic painting by Rembrandt, that is exhibited in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.
In the new art project The Shadow of the Master, the works of world-famous Dutch master painters come together and the dark sides of artistry are highlighted such as love, self-irony, poverty, sadness and misfortune. As with the Nightwatch360, 180 lookalikes were sought for this project who resemble their predecessors 350 years older.
Thanks to the cooperation of renowned institutions such as Allard Pierson, Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Museum Vrolik and well-known collectors and antique dealers, the photographic works show numerous original objects, crockery, weapons and sets. With the expertise and unbridled dedication of craftsmen such as make-up artist Arjen van der Grijn, costume designer Catherine Cuykens and art historian Marieke de Winkel, the costumes, jewelry and hairpieces are historically accurate down to the smallest detail.
Julius Rooymans grew up in an artist family and studied photography at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. He is a photographer for almost 25 years and made covers for Newsweek and The New York Times. The autonomous work of the visual artist has been presented at art fairs such as Art Miami and KunstRAI and is included in the collections of private collectors and companies. Rooymans lives and works in Amsterdam.
In addition to the exhibition at Wanrooij Gallery, The Shadow of the Master is on permanent display at the AFAS Theatre in Leusden. Five painters are central here: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Jan Steen, Vincent van Gogh and Piet Mondriaan. Eyecatcher is an Anatomical Theatre of 22 metres wide. There is also a making-of documentary about the art project and an audio tour with art-historical background information. The AFAS Theatre is organizing an event with the presentation of the photographic artworks on three dates: 26 March, 23 April and 21 May.
www.juliusrooymans.nl
