Miko Veldkamp

Born in Suriname, raised in the Netherlands, and currently residing in NYC, Veldkamp amalgamates cultural and visual elements from each place he has called home into a dream-like world that transcends spatial and temporal boundaries. The figures inhabiting the idyllic spaces of his paintings—often resembling himself, family members, or ghost-like entities—are in a perpetual state of transition, mirroring the fluid nature of identity, which shifts depending on one’s surroundings. Infused with a personal mix of cultural signifiers, Veldkamp’s work reflects on themes of history, belonging, colonialism, and urban environments.

Drawing inspiration from a place at the intersection of memory and imagination, Veldkamp constructs his paintings by applying light washes of colour and layering them to create varying degrees of translucency. By experimenting with different painterly techniques which oscillates between opacity and translucency, he unveils the inner workings of painting itself and questions the intrinsic biases and processes of othering inherent in the act of looking.

Miko Veldkamp (b. 1982, Suriname) grew up in The Netherlands and has been based in the United States since 2014. He currently lives and works in NYC. He was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam and a recipient of the Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and in 2021 he graduated from the Hunter College MFA painting program. Recent exhibitions include: ‘The 7th Wall’, group show, Alice Amati, London (2024); ‘Postcards from Home’ BB&M Gallery, Seoul (2023); ‘Confetti in the Shade’, Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York (2023); ‘Long Distance’, Long Story Short, New York (2023); ‘Botany of Desire’, group show, Swivel Gallery, New York, (2023); ‘Just Play’, group show, The Here and There, New York, (2023); ‘Decoy’, group show, Workplace Gallery, Newcastle, (2023); ‘Second Nature’, Southwark Park Galleries, London (2022); ‘Ghost Stories’, Workplace, London (2022); ‘Viscereal’, group show, Althuis Hofland, Amsterdam, (2022); ‘Kaleidoscope’, group show, Workplace Gallery, London, (2022); ‘Dream Life’, group show, BB&M Gallery, Seoul, (2022); ‘The privilege of getting together’, group show, Regular Normal at Swivel Gallery, New York, (2021); ‘In the Wake’, Hunter MFA thesis show, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, (2021); ‘Interludes’, Group show, Workplace Gallery, London, (2021).

In 2016 Veldkamp was nominated for the van Bommel van Dam Prize. His work was recently featured in Artforum, New American Paintings, ArtMaze Magazine, Metropolis M and Juxtapoz amongst others.