ABOUT - Micky Hoogendijk Photographic Art

MICKY HOOGENDIJK PHOTOGRAPHIC ART

I coax trust, contact and vulnerability from my subjects in order to produce an image from which the viewer can then create his own world. Recurring themes are religion, society and mythology; each work is intensely personal and takes both me and my subject on a journey that provokes fundamental questions about life and our existence.

Art has always been part of my life. I grew up in an international art scene in Europe, I spent years in front of the camera as an actress and model. Then my life’s work changed when my late mother’s last gift, a camera, inspired me and became the drive behind the creation of new life.
I want my art to be more than photographs. I seek out innovative printing technologies to create images with depth and richness, so they appear almost three-dimensional.

BIOGRAPHY

Art has always been an essential part of Micky Hoogendijk. Born in Amsterdam July 8, 1970, Hoogendijk grew up immersed in an international environment of art; surrounded by artists, art dealers, theater makers, actors and dancers. Hoogendijk’s grandfather, Dirk Hoogendijk, was one the most successful art dealers in The Netherlands in the last century. He used his perceptive eye to enrich many museums, including the Rijksmuseum, with the works of the Dutch Masters. As a young girl, Hoogendijk also spent many hours in the painting workshop of her father, the painter Roelof Frankot, who began as a photographer before moving his focus to abstract art.

As a young adult in the 90s, a time when postmodernism was just revealing itself, Hoogendijk was in the center of the Amsterdam and International art scene as both the wife and business partner of famous postmodern artist Rob Scholte. Only in her 20s, she ran the company Rob Scholte BV and was project manager of the prestigious and ambitious work ‘Après nous le deluge’, a wall and ceiling painting of 1,200 square meters in Nagasaki, Japan.
Later, she turned her attention further to business and entertainment and, as creative director of Supperclub, was actively involved in the international expansion of that renowned brand.
In her versatile career you will also find Hoogendijk in front of the camera. As a model, she posed for important Dutch designers like Mart Visser; as an actor, she appeared in European and US films and TV series.
Hoogendijk played the role of of Cleo de Wolf in the Dutch TV series Goede Tijden Slechte Tijden for two years, before leaving for Los Angeles to study method acting at the academy of the master teacher Eric Morris. She worked alongside Kate Hudson (in Raising Helen) and Rutger Hauer, and she lent her appearance and behaviors as inspiration for Luger, the main character in the video game Killzone. All the while, she appeared in multiple Dutch programs and films and, in 2008, was awarded “Best Actress in a Feature Film” at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival for her role in Blind-spot.
In 2009, Hoogendijk received a last gift from her ailing mother: a professional still camera. The gift would change her career forever. Two months later, her mother passed away, and she moved to San Francisco, where she discovered the majestic lines and architecture of the city through the eye of the camera.
By 2010, living and working again in Los Angeles, Hoogendijk discovered her gift for artistic portraits. In 2012 she moved to Austin, Texas, where she created her first body of work. By 2015 she returned to Los Angeles, where she continues her work as an artist.
In 2018 she returned to Europe and lives and works in the South of Holland near the Belgium boarder in a beautiful studio with her own gallery adjacent to that.

Hoogendijk created her first series of sculptures in 2020. The Ones visualises the connection between people. The stylised figures illustrate

her ideas about individual strength and, more especially, her impression of the invisible dynamic between people. The sculptures describe both a personal and a communal life

process. Hoogendijk not only shows herself, she also prompts us to look at ourselves, the faceless apparitions in The Ones leaving us free to fill in the

details. Above all, however, Hoogendijk wants us to realise that we can find connection by supporting each other.

Making connections is essential to Hoogendijk, and a prerequisite for personal progress, even if holding on

sometimes means letting go.

In both her photographs and her bronze sculptures, Micky Hoogendijk shows two qualities that are important to her: strength and vulnerability.
From her first photographs taken in 2012 to her latest series The Meetings of the Waters, and in her sculpture series The Ones, she always manages to inextricably link these two extremes.
Hoogendijk’s work tells us about the choices life has given her: carry on or break down, come to a standstill or keep moving. She chooses to celebrate life, with all her strength and in all her vulnerability, converting both joy and pain into contemporary yet timeless images.
In June 2022 Waanders published STRENGTH – vulnerability, Micky Hoogendijk, photography and sculpture, by Karin van Lieverloo.

Micky Hoogendijk’s photographic work has appeared in art shows like Art Platform Los Angeles, E- merge Art Fair in Washington DC, Contemporary Art Fair in Istanbul, Art Fair for Modern and contemporary Art Cologne Germany, Art Toronto Canada, Rotterdam Contemporary Art fair, Amsterdam PAN, KunstRai and ForReal. Exhibitions in London, Vancouver Canada, Karlsruhe, Los Angeles, Austin TX, Santa Fe NM, Bogota-Colombia, Mexico City, Antwerpen, London and Amsterdam and her work even went all the way to Tokyo, Japan. She has garnered both critical acclaim and commercial success and has signed with galleries in Amsterdam, Houston, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Antwerp and the UK.

Nurtured by the life of the international art world and memories of the Old Dutch masters such as Vermeer and Rembrandt, Hoogendijk takes the beholder on a journey into her universe: a dynamic and inspiring realm where visual arts, technology and theater melt together into photography.

Hoogendijkʼs work is characterized by sharp iconic images that deeply touch your soul. With her camera she enchants with lighting, and her images often contain religious and mythical themes. At the core of her work lies a quest for the majesty of vulnerability–an image without embellishment that captures the powerful essence of naked emotion. This theme is prominent in her portrait series Regal of 2012.

Micky Hoogendijk feels just as much at home behind the camera as in front of the camera. Drawing from her own experience, she understands and feels the emotion of her subjects and coaxes them to reveal all to her lens. And the camera connects her to her beloved mother and her own history. As a photographer and artist she has come full circle. Raised in a world of art, everything falls into place in her work as a photographer.