Saskia Noor van Imhoff creates installations, sculptures and photographic works which question the idea of the singular or original artwork. She conceives of her process as marking a moment in time, a temporary combination of materials and circumstance which will inevitably undergo further permutations. Van Imhoff employs materials associated with contemporary architectural spaces such as plexiglass and neon lighting, and synthesizes them with found materials.
Most recently, she has expanded her focus to the land, acquiring a plot of rural farmland on the northern coast of the Netherlands. This plot of land has become, as she defines it, an ’organic collection’ that she has been exploring in her work ever since, as she restores, responds to, and works with the historic land she lives on today. Transplanting her studio practice to this former dairy farm in the Dutch countryside, Van Imhoff’s research has been drawn to the idea of the land as a repository of knowledge, an expression of its own history, and a resource to learn more about ourselves. The process of documenting and rehabilitating the site forms the basis of her work, creating installations that echo the space outside of their original environment - the resulting photographs and sculptural installations examining systems of perception, archiving and archaeology. While addressing ideas of stewardship and our responsibility to and reliance on the land, she also questions the idea of a collection as a knowledge system and a mechanism that selects, differentiates, and classifies.
Saskia Noor van Imhoff (b. 1982 in Mission, CA) lives and works in Amsterdam and Mirns (NL). Van Imhoff was awarded the 2017 ABN Amro ArtPrize (NL), the 2012 Walter Tielmann Prize for Book Design (DE) and the 2008 Gerrit Rietveld Academie Prize (NL).
Van Imhoff has had exhibitions at various venues including: Fries Museum, Leeuwarden (NL); Centraal Museum, Utrecht (NL); AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); the Arnulf Rainer Museum, Baden (AT); Kunsthal, Rotterdam (NL); Frans Halsmuseum De Hallen, Haarlem (NL); the 11th Gwangju Biennial (KR); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (FR); Frans Hals Museum|DeHallen, Haarlem (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL); De Appel, Amsterdam (NL) and the Moscow Biennial (RU).
Van Imhoff’s work is included in the collections of ABN Amro Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam (NL); AMC Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); THE EKARD COLLECTION; Huize Frankendael, Amsterdam (NL); ING Art Collection, Amsterdam (NL); Leids Universitair Medisch Centrum, Leiden (NL); De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam (NL); Rabo Art Collection, Utrecht (NL); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (NL); Textiel Museum, Tilburg (NL); Verbeke Foundation, Kemzeke (BE) and Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar (NL), among many other public and private collections.