Ghost Stories

Opening Reception: Saturday 22 January, 2-5pm Exhibition opening hours: Sat – Sun, 11am – 5pm WORKPLACE Reliance Wharf 2-10 Hertford RoadLondon N1 5ET Workplace is pleased to announce the first UK solo show of Surinam born Dutch-Indonesian painter Miko Veldkamp opening at the gallery’s East London location on Saturday 22nd January. Veldkamp grew up in The Netherlands and is currently living and working in NY, where he graduated from Hunter College MFA program in June 2021. Miko Veldkamp’s recent paintings articulate spaces of memory—scenic portals, transgressive playgrounds, and “pseudo-self-portraits” are rendered in lush dreamscapes cultivated from his imagination. He begins with light washes of color, building layer upon layer, peering through degrees translucency and revealing the mechanisms of painting itself. Numerous, meticulous sketches line the walls of his studio. While these “exercises” bear a visual similarity to his finished paintings, they are not necessarily studies. His process, instead, happens directly on the canvas. His sketches allow him to reconstruct physical spaces from memory, but he embraces the poetic potential of misremembering to create new worlds for exploration and interaction for himself and the viewer.