Jantina Peperkamp was born in 1968 in The Netherlands where she currently lives and works alongside one of the scenic winding dikes characteristic of the country. Peperkamp originally trained as a goldsmith, but found her passion in painting. In 2007, Jantina’s first exhibition was held in one of The Netherlands’ most prestigious galleries and her career was off to a flying start.
Self-reflection is a recurring theme in Peperkamp’s work. Personal thoughts, feelings and memories are important components in her life and work. This is partly the reason why she chooses models in which she can recognize herself. The energy created between Peperkamp and her model plays a vital part in her work, where the artist takes the role of observer and commentator.
As a self-taught artist, Peperkamp has developed her own unique style. Her paintings are painstakingly created with many thin layers of acrylic paint that reveal an incredible amount of detail. Her editing – following the axiom less is more -makes Jantina’’s work instantly recognizable and exposes the bare essence of her subjects.
Although her style can undoubtedly be classified as realism, Peperkamp’s work goes deeper within, and beyond that categorization. What she shows is a parallel reality, a glimpse into personal perception. “Sometimes I suspect that I look at the world differently than others” says Peperkamp. “My paintings are interpreted differently by different viewers. I find that very special and don’t feel the need to put myself into the experience.”
We are proud and excited to show her artwork to our collectors.
“Originally trained as a goldsmith, our Dutch cover artist, Jantina Peperkamp – who is showing at RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton this summer – is no stranger to precision. After years crafting fine jewelry, she transitioned to painting, earning her first gallery exhibition in the Netherlands in 2007. “From an early age,” she says, “I liked to look at people – how they move, how they speak, the energy they radiate.” Crafted in an exacting style that is photorealist but imbued with a mood of fairytale otherworldliness or enchantment, Peperkamp’s paintings appear, at first glance, to be perfect – almost unsettlingly so. Beautiful, moody, with an air of the unreal, her subjects (often likeness of her daughter and her friends) seem to have been conjured from the pages of a Lewis Carroll story. Her process is painstaking and involves layering multiple thin coats of acrylics on wood panels. Due to the time consuming nature of her process, Peperkamp typically works from photographs rather than live models. This means she is able to capture her figures in motion. But while the images certainly come across as whimsical, there is also a certain loneliness to them. The subject seems to gaze longingly out of their frames, eager to connect. The tight, close, framing of Peperkamp’s faces contributes to the viewer’s sense of being right there, inside their personal space in a way that is at once intimate and slightly claustrophobic. They seem to hold you, paralyzed, in their gaze.”
-Nina Channing, The East Hampton Star Magazine, July 2019
