Love of the landscape with Michaël de Kok
By Charlotte Hoitsma — 25 November 2021
This year's recipient of the Will en Jan van Hoof Art Prize Noord-Brabant was the painter Michaël de Kok, who brings the most gorgeous landscapes to life in his works. The art prize turns the spotlight on Brabant artists and, in November 2021, was awarded for the fourth time to a Brabant artist of proven talent. Here's a little bit more about the winner.
De Kok in brief
Michael de Kok was born in 1958, in Hilvarenbeek, grew up in a family of artists, and now lives and works in Tilburg. He has exhibited in New York, but his work is most widely known in Belgium. De Kok's love of the landscape resonates throughout his work. It is as if, in his paintings, he is exploring how far he can go in abstracting that landscape. De Kok also has a sublime feel for colour and produces a seamless blend of the abstract and the figurative.
Foto Ruud Balk
Mountains and valleys
The artist paints from memory, his subjects ranging from a cold winter's night to a beautiful autumn day. He depicts clouds, mountains, grassy plains, valleys, and lakes with beautiful areas of colour, subtle shading, and exciting contrasts. On some canvases, the landscape appears to have been rotated 90 degrees, causing the horizon to run vertical. The paintings illustrate the endlessness of the landscape, exuding a breathtaking stillness.
Three artworks
Het Noordbrabants Museum selected for the art prize three artworks that are representative of the artist's body of work. The presentation is supplemented with five works from his own collection. The exhibition is open to everyone at the museum.
Brabant art prize
The Will en Jan van Hoof Art Prize Noord-Brabant is an oeuvre prize awarded to Brabant artists with a distinguished artistic career. The winner is chosen by Het Noordbrabants Museum and commissioned to complete an artwork for the museum within a maximum of one year. This work is then added to the collection.
Charlotte Hoitsma (1993) is a curator of modern and contemporary art at Het Noordbrabants Museum. She gained her Research Master's at the University of Utrecht with the distinction 'cum laude'. After graduating, she worked as a junior teacher at the University of Utrecht and as a junior curator of modern art at the Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar. Some of her areas of interest are: textile art, the human-nature relationship, spirituality in abstract art and (feminist) sci-fi.
