V&B (Alex Jacobs & Ellemieke Schoenmaker) work across painting, sculpture, and installation. Their practice unfolds as a sustained dialogue between abstraction and figuration, and between art-historical references and contemporary visual culture. While humor and self-irony often play an important role, the work is driven by a serious curiosity about how images, materials, and meanings accumulate over time.

During the first fifteen years of their collaboration, V&B developed an eclectic body of work in which historical motifs were combined with elements borrowed from media and popular culture. Spontaneous intuition and critical reflection led to unexpected constellations that invite viewers to discover relationships that often remain unseen. Each work was conceived as a fragment within a larger, evolving oeuvre rather than as an isolated statement. Painting, in particular, functioned as an empirical process of making and observing, through which new forms of awareness gradually emerged. A central question during this period was: How do imaginary and symbolic worlds reveal themselves to us?

In recent years, the focus of the practice has shifted toward material research. Residual plaster from the studio is compressed into new sculptural forms, which are then sanded and polished layer by layer. Each smooth surface reveals embedded colors and traces of earlier works, unfolding like an archaeological stratification. The repetitive labor induces a tangible calm, visible in the perfectly polished skins, while simultaneously condensing a layered history into a single object.

A key work within this phase is First Meeting of the Stone Liberation Front. In this series, sculptural “stones” are formed from rejected works, fragmented plaster waste, and remnants of earlier projects. These materials are clustered around a core of polystyrene or chicken wire with jute, and slowly ground down through an erosion-like process inspired by wind and water. The resulting surfaces display a marbled, candy-like palette in which new color patterns continually emerge. Together, the stones form an imagined assembly reflecting on the future. For Alex, the work evokes an activist gathering in which stones reclaim the earth from human dominance; for Ellemieke, it resembles a therapeutic circle. Both readings resonate with contemporary questions around ecology, care, and the legal and ethical status of natural entities.

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Since their founding, V&B have presented numerous solo and group exhibitions at museums, art spaces, and galleries in the Netherlands and abroad, including Torrance Art Museum, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, TENT Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Galerie Jaap Sleper, and Co-Prosperity Sphere.

They have received several awards and grants, including De Nieuwe Rembrandt (AVRO), the Royal Award for Modern Painting, and the Proven Talent Grant from the Mondriaan Fund.

Their work is held in public and private collections such as the Centraal Museum Utrecht, Museum Voorlinden, VU Medical Center, the AkzoNobel Art Foundation, and the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, as well as numerous private collections.

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CV V&B