About

About the Artist
Noah N.N. van Dongen was born in 1986 on the 24th of August in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. At the age of 21 he enrolled in the art academy of Rotterdam, the Willem de Kooning Academie. His main interests lie in the field of philosophy, psychology, biology and physics. Art was never his main interest and he always was more interested in the old masters then the contemporary artists. He has no religion and can be described as an apatheist even though his way of (looking at) life resembles that of Zen-Buddhism.
In October 2011 he started an management and organization internship at the MK Award Foundation. In September 2012 Van Dongen will be starting as a graduate student at the Erasmus University in Art and Cultural Sciences.

Expo’s and Institutional Activities:

2009

Multimasters
TENT - Blurr Project.
One day performance in exposition Blurr.
In collaboration with Maite Kragl
 

2010

HUREN?
Botersloot - Self initiated and organized exposition
Group exposition with Maite Kragl, Jerney de
Wilde, Robin Pieterse, Markus Haala and Mike
van der Stel.
Showing ‘without the Real’.

Kunstsuper - Lord of Flying exposition
Group exposition.
Showing ‘without the Real’.

http://www.dekunstsuper.nl/pages.php/Dekunstsuper_galerie2010_04_wdka.html

Masterclass Project with Marc Bijl
Organized by Witte de With.

TROY ART
Collective project.
Organized by Museu Brasileiro da Escultura.

http://toymube.blogspot.com/

2011
 FUNGII ET ORBII
Group exhibition of FUNGII.

WDKA GRADUATION FESTIVAL
BFA Graduation exhibition.

galerie IRIS CORNELIS
Duo exhibition with Monique Benthin. 
www.iriscornelis.com

Art Route Kralingen-Crooswijk
Group exhibition of several galleries.

2012

Paviljoen Rotterdam #1
Satellite Art Fair during the Art Rotterdam.

www.paviljoenrotterdam.nl

Ampelhaus
Group exhibition. Oranienbauw, Germany.

www.ampelhaus.nl

About the Work
A combination of classical aesthetics and contemporary conceptualism resembling both the 17th century Vanitas paintings of Willem Claeszoon Heda and the work of Navid Nuur. The mysteriously dark images triggers curiosity in everyone who comes near. The unidentifiable objects in the photographed compositions, in contrast with the clarity of the image, captivate every viewer.
For his photographs Van Dongen uses ordinary objects from the direct environment of the viewer, who seem to have a clear meaning and purpose. But in the photographs, without having lost their form, the objects can no longer be unambiguously identified.
How can anything have an inherent meaning when it can be so easily be manipulated or separated from its form? Isn’t it more likely that the viewer gives meaning to what he perceives? Since perception is all we have and all information comes to us though our senses - their manipulation is al to easy - how can you be sure of anything? There is no truth, not even a personal one.
In a society where the inhabitants share a culture, the meaning of anything is just a cultural construct. What we call reality is probably just a learned way of perceiving the environment, a paradigm.
A paradigm can be described as a way of looking and perceiving the world, a cultural inter-subjective way of organizing the chaos, an implicit system with rules that the world seems to follow. The problem is that we believe in the truth of the paradigm and value it as such, even though countless paradigms went before it (not more or less true then this or the next one). It is just a practical way of looking at the world, nothing more.
It is interesting to see what happens when a paradigm no longer offers answer about what you are looking at.