Finding Beauty in Imperfection: Sjaak Kooij’s Rise from Street Culture to Contemporary Art
- Cake
- Jan 31
- 9 min read
Back in the day, Dutch artist Sjaak Kooij spent his nights painting graffiti across the city.
Those early experiences with spray cans and street walls still echo in his work today.
Now a painter and ceramicist, he brings that same raw energy into his layered canvases and his recognizable masks. Using fragments from media, everyday life, and his own archive, he creates images that explore themes like anonymity, estrangement, and the temporary nature of modern life.
Kooij doesn’t try to push a message or take a side; he simply opens a space for viewers to think for themselves. His use of strong contrasts, vibrant color, and thoughtful composition gives familiar subjects a new context.
Since 2018, he has lived in a 1931 school building, where he founded Studio1931 to live, work, and connect through art. The space brings together artists at all levels, offering room to create and grow. One bright classroom serves as his studio, ideal for painting, printmaking, and ceramics.
With OBJECT Rotterdam 2026 approaching, we spoke with him about his artistic journey, his process, and how his work continues to evolve.
Many know you now for your expressive paintings or ceramic work, but your background includes street art in your earlier years. Can you take us back to that time? What first drew you into that world, and who or what influenced you most during that time?
As a teenager, I was on the street a lot—skating, listening to music. That was just my world back then. Graffiti was always part of that. It started innocently, just tagging, and later it became more serious when I found a group of like-minded people, and we started going out at night together. The adrenaline and the drive to constantly make something dope were addictive. Inspiration came from everywhere, but the most important thing was always to stand out with your own style.
During that formative period, you were always pushing boundaries. What do you remember most from that period, both the tricky moments and the things that pushed you forward?
As a graffiti artist, you’re always trying to push your limits, making things bigger and adding more color. Rooftops, at some point, I was climbing all kinds of buildings, scouting during the day to figure out how to get up there, then doing the climb at night. Most of the time it went fine, but sometimes I had to run. Still, the motivation to make beautiful pieces was just as strong. During the day, I was often at Hall of Fames, experimenting with new shapes and techniques. All those experiences, but especially the street itself, have been guiding forces in the work I make now.
You work with images from media, everyday life, and your own archive. How do you choose which images to use, and what draws you to them?
In my free work, there’s always been a reflection of society. In my paintings, I work with imagery from different kinds of media. I used to work mainly with newspapers, but screenshots from social media also find their way into the work now. I don’t really know what the exact criteria are. It’s intuitive. Usually, images with a certain sense of alienation, strong characters, people in action, protests, and everyday figures just going about their lives. When I start working on a new composition, I dig through my archive to pick out the right elements. Armed with a camera and a sketchbook, I move through cities like New York City. Photos I take or quick reconstructions I sketch, can later turn into finished works. Everything ends up in the archive.
Themes like anonymity, estrangement, individualism, and transience recur in your work, often with an absurd or staged quality. What personal experiences or observations in today’s world inspire these themes the most for you?
In my work, I like to mix real life with a sense of theater, treating everyday scenes like little staged moments. I love theatre and storytelling, and I also see the people on the street as characters.
I did an important residency in Detroit, USA. I wanted to work somewhere that’s often written off, a city on the edges of the Western world. There, I found inspiration in decay, in the people on the streets, fragments of conversations. That period had a huge influence on my painting, but also on who I am as an artist. Again, you see my fascination with the rough edges of society, the places I keep returning to. Sometimes current events translate very directly into a work, sometimes reality itself is so absurd that you don’t know what to do with it. But directly or indirectly, it will show up, whether in painting or in ceramics.
You describe your process as layered: adding, removing, and repainting, where the painting almost “dialogues with itself.” Can you share a specific example from a recent piece where this back-and-forth changed the outcome unexpectedly?
Every process is layered, whether it’s a painting or a ceramic piece. Even though those processes are completely different, it’s interesting to explain how painting has influenced the way I work with ceramics. Painting is very direct; you immediately see what you’re doing, and that’s it. A few lines can already suggest a face; as a viewer, you fill in the rest.
At the same time, painting is layered: every action affects the whole. Painting over parts, removing things, then continuing with a different approach. It’s subjective as hell, but completely according to your own aesthetics and rules of the game.
A few years back, when I started with ceramics, I kept asking myself if I could do the same things I do in painting, but in three dimensions, keeping that same suggestive, painterly touch. The reality of ceramics is much more complex. The process is a lot slower and more indirect. I start by modeling the clay, then fire it, glaze it, fire it again, and sometimes glaze and fire it one more time. Only after that do I bring in the textiles. The textiles are great for creating suggestion, a loose, brushstroke-like feel, and they also make the colors pop.
A specific example is The Tree Player, a painting in which a figure sits in a tree playing a mandolin. I reworked the background several times, and in the end, I used the paint left on my palette. That’s how I arrived at the final result—an unexpected, almost mother-of-pearl-like effect. A good example of how coincidence can lead to something new.
You’ve expanded into three-dimensional work as well. What initially sparked this move into installations or ceramics, and how does the tactile process of sculpting clay differ from your layered painting technique?
When I was painting a series based on the Nine Muses from Greek mythology, I arrived at a group of works that later became the bridge toward ceramics. These portraits show nine masked figures. Comedy and tragedy have traditionally always been masked, but I decided to paint the other seven as masked figures as well. They were partly inspired by European folklore and, at the same time, a study of texture—but above all, they were works I really enjoyed making. Because texture and materiality were so present in these paintings, I started wondering how I could translate that into something spatial, into ceramics. It was completely unpretentious, really just an investigation, and one I enjoyed immensely. The textures in raw clay, experimenting with glazes, and then, as a final step, researching how textiles could complete the work.
Many of your works portray intriguing characters—bearded figures, masked faces, mythical or folk-like beings (e.g., Wanderer, GoldMouth, or The Witch). Are these inspired by real people, folklore, or something more invented, and what do they represent for you?
In the Amongst Gods and Ghosts series, which I started after a residency in NYC in 2019, I paint portraits of people I encountered on the street—outspoken individuals like homeless people, vendors, and street musicians. All kinds of figures balancing on the edges of society, people most pass by without even blinking.
I translate these people into, or approach them as, mythological characters within the series. By doing that, they shift from being overlooked individuals into figures that feel timeless. Themes like anonymity and estrangement return often in my work, and my fascination with folklore—ghosts, devils, witches—connects directly to that. The mask and the anonymous person behind it reflect on the world while existing more on its margins.
You’ve recently created handmade ceramic masks, each unique with glazes, shapes, and even “hair.” What sparked this shift into three-dimensional work, and how does it connect—or contrast—with your painting practice?
From the Muses painting series, I made the step toward creating spatial work in ceramics.
At that time, I didn’t have any exhibitions coming up, no pressure, so it was the perfect period to experiment. It started out completely unpretentious, without the ambition to show this work publicly. That playfulness was liberating, and the joy of making—and the endless possibilities of the medium—became quite addictive. Through discovering ceramics and glazes, I keep arriving at new forms. It’s incredibly satisfying to keep varying in one form, allowing new versions to emerge every time. The masks evolved into spatial works like the tripods and rotating smileys. The figures are becoming more autonomous, and each development opens new doors. The masks are autonomous works, but at the same time also ‘objects.’ In 2025, I considered showing them publicly for the first time at the design fair Object Rotterdam. That turned out to be a catalyst—the works were received with such enthusiasm that it pushed me to continue with even more energy.
Your “Kiosk” series stems from your 2019 artist residency at Mothership NYC in Brooklyn. What was it about that time in New York—perhaps exploring the city or subway outskirts—that first sparked your interest in these small shops or kiosks?
Just like the portraits from the Amongst Gods and Ghosts series, the kiosks grew out of my residency at Mothership NYC. What attracted me were these small, enclosed worlds the vendors inhabit—the (artificial) light, the tightly packed shops filled with all kinds of products, and the traces time leaves behind. This series is impatiently waiting for a continuation, but because I’m so fully focused on ceramics right now, I hardly get around to painting.
Looking at your exhibition history, how do you approach presenting your work in a gallery setting? Does the space influence how you group or install pieces?
It’s really satisfying to create an exhibition where all the works come together and form something larger as a whole. Sometimes that happens in a clean, neutral space, where the works don’t directly relate to the environment. Other times it’s in an older building that still carries traces of the past—then it becomes exciting to let that history enter into a dialogue with my work.
As a founder of Studio 1931 (AIR), and with your mural work, how do you balance your personal studio practice with collaborative or public projects?
I’m grateful for every hour I get to spend in my studio, but working there alone all the time just isn’t an option. Commissioned work—murals, fairs, exhibitions—it’s all a matter of planning and discipline. I’m always open to new collaborations, so sometimes you just have to run a bit faster to make everything work.
You’re participating in OBJECT Rotterdam 2026 congratulations! What inspired you to join this edition, and what kind of work are you planning to present there?
After the successful OBJECT edition in 2025, I decided to present my new ceramic work at the next one. It’s a great environment, a pleasant organization, and—most importantly—a really good audience. It allows me to show my work to a large public, and who knows what might grow out of that.
What’s exciting you right now—any upcoming series, experiments with new materials or techniques, or dreams for future bodies of work?
I’m working on several new masks and installations that I’ll be developing further in the coming period. Expect a group of rotating smileys that together perform a kind of choreography. Expect a mask that also produces music and responds to the movement of the viewer. These are all playful puzzles that I’m taking the time to solve. In the short term, my work can be seen at OBJECT Rotterdam and NOCK NOCK Amsterdam. After that, it’s time to make new work again—this will happen during a new residency, Sanctuary Slimane, in Marrakech, Morocco. During that period, I can let go of everything and dive into new (ceramic) work without a concrete plan. I’m really looking forward to it.
As his practice continues to evolve, Sjaak Kooij remains focused on themes of transience, identity, and the influence of visual culture. His method of layering, repainting, and recontextualizing images reflects a practice that bridges his early visual influences with his current position in contemporary art. With new work in development for OBJECT Rotterdam 2026, Kooij is set to present pieces that highlight his ongoing interest in how fragmented media, personal archives, and everyday moments can be transformed into something visually compelling. His trajectory shows how an artist rooted in street culture has steadily shaped a distinctive, recognizable voice within today’s art landscape, inviting audiences to look more closely at the fleeting images that define our time!
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