Working for over 50 years primarily as a painter, Dutch artist Jacqueline de Jong has honed a practice that deftly elaborates on major themes within the human experience. Intertwined with these major themes is the artist’s personal experience; de Jong’s mother escaped Nazi-occupied Netherlands with her infant in tow, a harrowing moment that would impact her work in the future. De Jong’s paintings often include unconventional narratives filled with distressed animals and humans, incorporating themes such as violent death, irreverent humor, and eroticism. Berliner Parade Tiergarten is an evocative piece of theatre referencing a stolen moment from a parade running through Berlin’s well-known park. De Jong carefully chose this locale for its historical connection to a site that once housed Nazi doctors and bureaucrats conspiring to mass murder psychiatric patients from the nearby sanitarium. In this image, de Jong revisits the politics of place parceled with her unique humor and depravity in a scene where human and animal instincts collide. De Jong has held solo exhibitions at major museums all over the world for the last 50 years.
