Born in 1967 in Almelo (NL), lives and works in Groningen (NL)

My paintings are simultaneously picture and abstract image,
the process of genesis and the embodiment of that process.

In Anglo-Saxon languages, there is this difference between ‘color’ and ‘paint’ that is summarized in German in the word ‘Farbe’. Martijn Schuppers developed a very special and distinctive handling of paint. He uses oil and alkyd paint, turpentine and other agents in a way that paintbrush marks and painting direction build structures looking like landscapes. The beholder seems to look from a bird’s eye view onto craters or other hard-shaped landscapes or even onto microscopically detailed presentations of surfaces.

The paintings play with the illusion of the beholder; they feign depth where there is none. The effect of depth derives from Schupper’s specific handling of his paint material. Process and effigy melt into each other. The paintings of the Dutch artist are highly attractive, because they do fathom the possibilities and limits of the so-called fundamental painting. They are at the center of the academic problem to determine position of contemporary color painting. Mainly the works of Schuppers are wonderful proposals for sensual adventures.

Works of the artist

exibitions/grants/awards (selected):

2002        Liestal (CH), Kunsthalle Palazzo, ‘Holland – Schweiz 3:2’ 
2006        Ludwigshafen am Rhein (D)Wilhelm Hack-Museum, ‘Floating Forms / Abstract art now’ 
2006        Schiedam (NL) Stedelijk Museum, Unisono 14: ‘The Nature of Painting’ – solo 
2006        New York (USA), Times Square Gallery/Hunter College ‘Presentational Painting III’ 
2006        Aalst (B), Stedelijk Museum, ‘The Magical Power of the Painted Image’ 
2006        Graz (A), Kunstverein Medienturm, ‘Unfinished Business’ 
2008        Heerlen (NL), Städtische Galerie, ‘Visual Moods’ (curator Regine Schumann)
2009        Breda (NL), Lokaal 01, ‘My Painting.nu’            
2011        Bad Homburg (D), Sammlung Mondstudio, ‘Sie sind Hier’
2011        Aalst (B), Stedelijk Museum, ‘De Saedeleer revisited/ Het landschap in de hedendaagse kunst’ 
2012        Witten (D), Märkisches Museum, ‘There was a world once…’, 
2013        Recklinghausen (D), Kunstmuseum ,‘Reset: Abstract Painting in a digital World’ 
2014        Düsseldorf (D), Gagarin, ‘Spaced In’, solo with Jan Scharrelman
2015        Otterndorf/Cuxhaven (D), Museum für Gegenstandsfreier Kunst, ‘Pentimenti’ – solo