His monsters seemed to make themselves. They have ever since and his style hasn’t changed.
Jannes van Arkel is the unexpected new artist of Sato Gallery! Dutch, rebellious, free, young and very talented.
Born in Rotterdam, in 1997, the year of the ox - a very good year to be born, according to him - Jannes grew up in an artistic family that traveled a lot to far places.
Torn between the wish to study anthropology, history and art at the same time, he decided to pursue advertising at Willem de Kooning Art Academy hoping it would satisfy all his desires. He was a bit disappointed with the reality and commercialism of the studies, but being a rather independent mind, he decided to use the advertising tools he was taught to break the system from within. He graduated with honours and was top of his class with an incredible installation that we witnessed at the Willem de Kooning Graduation Show of 2022.
Jannes started doing ceramics at the early age of 5, when he attended a children arts & crafts class. He was a natural. His monsters seemed to make themselves. They have ever since and his style hasn’t changed.
While studying at the Willem de Kooning Jannes had access to all the tools he needed to create ceramics by himself. After a traumatic experience, he started creating monsters again while studying. Ceramics have been his coping mechanism and a way to unwind. Beside, it was a means to channel his inexhaustible source of creativity. With his background in advertisement, Jannes has an almost philosophical approach to art and life in itself. He likes to conceptualise and write theories that come to mind while working on his ceramics.
In 2023 he organised a ceramics show in his studio in Rotterdam and sold out all his ‘monsters’.
We are proud and excited to present Jannes' works, and with him a bit of the highly conceptual and unconventional art scene of Rotterdam