From materials we normally discard like padded packaging or the mesh sleeves that protect fruit from bruising, Suzanne Jongmans summons elegant and dreamlike Renaissance portraits.
The artist drapes models in lush velvet fabrics and typically positions them against deep backgrounds in the vein of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine” (1489-91) or Antonello da Messina’s “Portrait of a Young Man” (c. 1470). The settings and the addition of fine garments contrast found plastic detritus with hints of refinement and the figures’ dignified postures, mirroring the solemn, pious expressions of individuals in Renaissance portraiture. Recently, she has also incorporated copper coils extracted from the electric motors of disused household appliances and fuses.
Jongmans infuses her works with nods to gender roles and issues that still raise the hackles of “polite society,” such as breastfeeding in public. The artist seamlessly ties a centuries-old aesthetic to salient contemporary concerns, exploring femininity, individuality, and the nature of concealment. Through the latter especially, she delves into the human capacity for wonder and its significance at a time when technology, the gears of so-called progress, and revisionism endanger our connections to the natural world, our histories, and one another.
The artist describes her approach as an exploration of the space between the material and the immaterial world, one where society, eras, emotions, and cosmic forces converge. “Since the Enlightenment, reason has been glorified and the Western tendency towards a drive for modernization and mechanization has increased,” Jongmans says in a statement. “The significance of myths and imagination in our daily lives seems to have been lost or at least faded into the background.”
By exploring the past, Jongmans creates exquisitely contemporary compositions, prompting us to consider the meaning of value and how it is assigned. The works are also sensitive, introspective meditations on human feeling, and she has even occasionally turned the camera on herself. “In the Midst of It All,” for example, is a self-portrait taken during the pandemic that serves as a reminder to slow down, rest, and reconnect not only with the surrounding environment but with oneself.
See more on Jongmans’ Instagram.
