This document provides short biographies of the artists on display in Museum Villa, intended for press and media professionals.

Version: 1 September 2025

We proudly present the first confirmed artists of Villa: Elsemarijn Bruys, Eniwaye Oluwaseyi, Folkert de Jong, Gilleam Trapenberg, Karel van Laere, Koos Buster, Levi van Veluw, Max Siedentopf, Thomas Trum, Vera Gulikers, Willem de Haan, Yamuna Forzani and Zoro Feigl.

All artists at Villa use a strong visual language and create experiential art that directly engages the senses. Their work is investigative, physical, and visually striking, exploring themes such as the body, identity, space, and experience — often with a playful and sometimes critical undertone. Notable is the use of humour, alienation and/or the surreal.
The artists work in a multidisciplinary way, experiment with media and materials, and intentionally seek interaction with the viewer and the context.

Elsemarijn Bruys

Elsemarijn Bruys (1989) playfully investigates our senses. She influences and manipulates sensory perception through sculptures, installations, and architectural interventions, and sharpens the relationship between the viewer and the space. Bruys aims for maximum effect with minimal interventions. Air, reflection, and the intangible are materialized.

Her work is about the in-between space and the interaction between visitor and space, and between people. She draws on principles from minimal art, an art movement from the 1960s in which not the work but the (museum) space, and its values and context, are central.

She confronts viewers with themselves and their presence in the space through reflective surfaces that endlessly distort and twist, or through large inflatables that leave no room for human presence. Elsemarijn’s practice is a theatrical celebration of deception. Truth is presented as a construct, an agreement. For Elsemarijn, truth is ultimately always a material matter that she joyfully and relentlessly splinters and pushes to the extreme. She compresses air into something tangible that nearly bursts at the seams, distorts the visitor’s smile into a grotesque grimace – until it becomes beautiful again.

Elsemarijn was born in the Netherlands and works in Rotterdam. She studied Fashion Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts, where she specialised in a graduation project around the puffer jacket.

Eniwaye Oluwaseyi

Eniwaye Oluwaseyi’s (1994) paintings focus on portraiture, bridging figuration and expressionism to explore identity and its role in shared spaces. Drawing from memory, family photos, and imagined fragments, he creates psychological realities filled with bold colours and expressive brushstrokes. “I try to combine unusual colors and techniques,” he says.

His work reflects on personal and collective experiences within shifting socio-political contexts, often evoking themes of hope and redemption. Though self-taught through YouTube while studying Agricultural and Bioengineering, Oluwaseyi developed a distinct visual language that blends traditional portraiture with modern techniques.

Working primarily in oil, he builds textured, sculptural surfaces that create luminous, layered compositions. His style plays with presence and absence, grounding deeply personal stories in a wider social lens.

Eniwaye was born in Kwara, Nigeria, and still lives there. He obtained a B.Eng. in Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering from the University of Ilorin in 2018.

Folkert de Jong

Folkert de Jong (1972) is known for his life-size sculptural groups made of Styrofoam and polyurethane foam, materials used for insulation in construction, architecture, and the Hollywood film industry. With this material, atypical for art and originating from the petrochemical industry, De Jong creates remarkable and complex tableaux of grotesque worlds, addressing power, violence, disaster, and other disturbing aspects of the human condition. Intrigued by the depths of the human soul, the artist drags the viewer into a world where the bizarre and the vulnerable meet.

His work often evokes art historical associations alongside contemporary political issues and current affairs, with a sense of a post-apocalyptic future perspective. Over the years, the sculptures of Folkert de Jong have become virtuosic and painterly. His sculptural groups seem to emerge from the material effortlessly.

The early sculptures appear rough and unfinished. They are usually monochrome blue and pink, the colors of Styrofoam itself. Later, Folkert introduces a richer color palette and cleverly combines figuration, abstraction, and symbols in his works. The figures are often life-size, giving the viewer the chance to relate to the sculptures and feel like a witness to the compelling, often ominous scenes.

“History has always fascinated me. Especially that it can be viewed from different perspectives. What occupies my mind is the metabolism of time. How time and events are intertwined, digested, and what remains of them. The morality and meaning of events is therefore difficult to determine from a single point of view and can change depending on the spirit of the times. What does that mean for the history we are making right now?”

Folkert was born in Egmond aan Zee, the Netherlands, and currently lives and works in Amsterdam. He studied at the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Amsterdam from 1994 to 1996 and continued his education at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam from 1998 to 2000.

Gilleam Trapenberg

Gilleam Trapenberg (1991)  zooms in on the many paradoxes present in the socio-cultural landscape of the Caribbean. With his camera, he challenges the stereotyping and cultural misinformation often employed by the dominant (Western) media landscape in the representation of Caribbean life. Although Trapenberg is sometimes also seduced by the picturesque qualities of Curaçao, the focus of his work lies on the realities of the colonial past and the continuous flow of goods and people in relation to mass tourism on the islands.

Trapenberg studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and moved to the Netherlands at the age of nineteen. Since then, his works have been exhibited at Foam Photography Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Fotografiska Stockholm, and the Shanghai Center of Photography.

Gilleam was born in Willemstad, Curaçao and now lives and works in Amsterdam. He moved to the Netherlands at nineteen to study Photography.

Karel van Laere

Karel van Laere (1988) is a multidisciplinary artist working between performance and video art. With a background in both performing and visual arts, he explores the tension between the human body and technological systems. His projects often start with fundamental questions and grow through collaborations with professionals from diverse fields, from surgeons to dancers.

In Calling From Work (2025, Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Van Laere called his parents once a week during a three-month stay abroad. While they always spoke from the same spot at home, on the couch next to the Wi-Fi router, he was often in unfamiliar, faraway places. This contrast between the domestic and the global creates an absurd reality, reflecting on how location shapes connection.

His works are frequently created with the support of multidisciplinary teams and international collaborators.

Karel was born in The Hague, the Netherlands and now lives and works between The Hague and Rotterdam. He studied at the Maastricht Theatre Academy from September 2008 to June 2012 and continued his education at the Taipei National University of the Arts in Taiwan from September 2012 to June 2013.

Koos Buster

Koos Buster (1991) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2018, where he presented his now-legendary Grote Koos Buster Museum. His work celebrates the clumsy, the trivial, the overlooked. A sketch often marks the start of a new idea and sometimes, the sketch itself becomes the work.

Buster makes hand-painted plates of things he dislikes (risotto, brushing teeth, certain politicians) and sculpts everyday objects in clay, like scooters, security cameras, and working water coolers. His style is playful and rough on purpose: “I can sculpt much better than I show.”

His work has been shown at Museum Beelden aan Zee, the Frans Hals Museum, and Unfair, among others. He has also exhibited at galleries like Fons Welters and Fleur & Wouter. Articles on his work have appeared in Het Parool, de Volkskrant, NRC, Vice, and Mister Motley. His pieces are part of collections at AkzoNobel and Allen & Overy. In 2019 he received the Glasstipendium from Stichting Stokroos.

Koos was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and lives and works in Amsterdam-Noord. He studied Fine Arts and Design, specialising in ceramics, at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy from 2013 to 2018.

Levi van Veluw

Over the past 17 years, Levi van Veluw (1985) has built a diverse and continually evolving oeuvre that is exhibited worldwide. He is known for his installations, sculptures, drawings, and autobiographical films that originate from childhood memories. From the depths of his memory, the artist brings forth images that evoke universal emotions and question our human logic. Levi plays with elements of order and chaos and poses questions to the viewer about our obsessive drive for control.

Van Veluw creates his works with utmost care and craftsmanship; his sculptures of clay and wood are made entirely by hand, giving them an authentic, rough, and organic character. His carefully constructed charcoal drawings show great symmetry and harmony, while his remarkable use of light evokes a strong, meditative atmosphere.

Levi’s installations offer intense and immersive experiences. In the past, he has built complete – albeit fictional – cathedrals, as well as other dark and sensory spaces built from enigmatic forms and materials. Visitors who enter these alternate realities become detached from their existing spatial interpretations. They experience a disruptive environment in which order and chaos exist side by side.

Levi van Veluw was born in Hoevelaken, the Netherlands. He graduated in 2007 from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem, where he developed the foundations of his meticulous, concept-driven practice.

Max Siedentopf

Max Siedentopf (1991) is a multidisciplinary artist, creative director, and Emmy-winning filmmaker known for his playful, surreal take on contemporary life. Blurring the lines between art, design, and the everyday, his work mixes humor and social critique to expose the absurdities of modern culture.

Grew up in Namibia and now based between London and Lisbon, Siedentopf has worked in cities like Berlin, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and Lisbon. His practice spans photography, sculpture, video, installation, creative direction, and publishing. He founded ORDINARY, a magazine turning mundane objects into visual curiosities, and was creative director at KesselsKramer, becoming its youngest partner at 25.

His recent hyper-realistic sculptures combine precise craftsmanship with biting commentary, revealing the flaws in systems we often take for granted. Absurd and thought-provoking, his projects explore pop culture, consumerism, identity, and daily routines.

Max’s distinctive visual language has led to collaborations with brands like Gucci, Prada, and Hermès, and features in The New York Times, Vogue, and Dazed. His installation Toto Forever was named by artnet as one of “10 Extraordinary Artworks You Need to Travel to the Edge of the World to See.”

Max was born in Tegernsee, Germany and grew up in Windhoek, Namibia. He studied in Berlin before working across cities, Berlin, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, and now lives in London. He currently lives and works between London and other creative hubs.

Merijn Haenen

Merijn Haenen (1989) is a Rotterdam-based artist who creates multidimensional, playful installations that invite viewer interaction. His work is characterized by rich details, labyrinthine patterns, and bold forms. In 2022, he developed framed worlds—installations that combine various materials in unexpected ways. An example of this is his light installation for Theater Rotterdam, in which he combined discarded neon tubes with straps, resulting in a dynamic, site-specific composition.

Merijn is also known for his participation in the artist-in-residence program at Studio Kura in Japan, where he explored local materials and techniques.

Nazif Lopulissa

Nazif Lopulissa (1991), based in Rotterdam, graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in 2016. Born to a Turkish father and a Moluccan mother, he explores in his work the cultural ‘in-between space’ that he personally experiences. His practice combines narratives of migration with a formal visual language, bringing together sculptural and painterly traditions from both his autobiographical background and abstract imagery.

At the heart of his practice is the interplay between memory, history, and possibility. Using techniques inspired by IKAT weaving, he creates woven canvases: two painted fabrics that he cuts into strips and then interlaces. In doing so, he pushes the boundaries of painting while engaging with his family history. He also incorporates materials and references from Turkish and Moluccan culture, such as wooden sculptures or traditional dishes, blending them with abstraction to communicate across cultural boundaries.

Recent highlights include winning the Wolvecamp Prize for Painting in 2022 and presenting his project Strange Soil at the Rijksakademie Open Studios 2025, continuing his ongoing exploration of identity and cultural hybridity.

Thomas Trum

Thomas Trum (1989) is a painter particularly fascinated by the idea of leaving traces. Trum explores the abstract. He works within a self-imposed, limiting framework that focuses solely on line and color, varying in scale from a sheet of paper to a facade.

Research into materials, techniques, and spatial composition form the core of his work. He often creates his works on a large scale and develops unconventional tools, including giant felt-tip pens and custom-made rotating spray machines.

Fascinated by large vehicles such as agricultural machines that operate in rhythmic patterns with maximum efficiency, Thomas experiments with these techniques to continually discover new ways of creating images. The extensive preparations contrast with the execution of the final work, which sometimes takes only a few minutes. An interaction between human and tool, like a choreography to apply the line to the surface in the best possible way.

The physical effort is visible in his works, a movement captured in color. The studio functions as a place for his ongoing study in a clearly recognizable, colorful, and abstract visual language.

Thomas was born in ’s-Hertogenbosch (Rosmalen), the Netherlands, and lives and works in Den Bosch. He studied Spatial Design (SWD) at St Lucas in Boxtel, earning a diploma in 2010, and continued with a Bachelor in Man & Leisure at the Design Academy Eindhoven, graduating in 2014.

Vera Gulikers

Vera Gulikers (1991) focuses on painting and sculpturwe, examining the medium of painting and its close relation to the painterly qualities of so-called “female” conventions. She works with old painting techniques such as egg tempera, fresco, and embroidery, combined with screen printing, couture textiles, cleaning products, and techniques originating from the interior industry.

Vera was a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie (2017–2019), obtained a Master of Fine Art from Sint Lucas School of Arts in Antwerp (2016), and a Bachelor of Fine Art from the Maastricht Academy of Fine Art and Design (2014). In 2017, she received the Royal Award for Modern Painting for her works Poets- en Testdoeken. Her work is included in various national and international private and museum collections.

Vera was born in Meerssen, the Netherlands and lives and works in Maastricht.

Willem de Haan

Willem De Haan (1996) challenges and undermines the socially conditioned and politically determined rules of everyday locations. By adding artificial elements in a convincing yet uncanny way, his works directly influence daily situations. His suggestive sculptural interventions refer to the influence of props on fictional scenarios in film and theater.

All projects are conceived in and around Europe. In recent years, objects and scenarios have been developed in local studios in, among others, Rotterdam, Berlin, Barcelona, Antwerp, and Vienna. Willem’s ambition is to create iconic visual scenarios with special attention to local impact, executed in timeless designs, formed by just eight years of professional experience.

Willem was born in the Netherlands. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Arnhem, graduating in 2017.

Yamuna Forzani

Yamuna Forzani (1993) is a multidisciplinary artist and queer activist, driven by the desire to build her own queer utopia in which her community is central and celebrated – as both part of and inspiration for her creative work.

Yamuna’s work takes form through textiles; she explores this medium in collaboration with other design, art, and social initiatives. This often translates into organizing events and dance performances, integrating fashion and costume, public art, and versatile installations.

Yamuna was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and now lives and works in the Netherlands. She studied in the Textile & Fashion department at The Hague’s Royal Academy of Art (KABK).

Zoro Feigl

Zoro Feigl (1983) creates work that moves. Zoro is fascinated by why things work the way they work, why something moves the way it moves. Zoro’s installations often consist of industrial materials that he sets in motion to dance, rotate, writhe, or flail. Zoro gives his material a poetic power through movement. A load of balls becomes a swarm of starlings, a conveyor belt with water becomes as enchanting as a fireplace. He tries to understand the behavior of the material as well as possible: the material as a beast he wants to tame. Zoro tries to gain control and to understand what makes the forces manifest in this way. Only then can the material come to life, do something unexpected, or bring about something magical.

Zoro was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and lives and works between Amsterdam and Antwerp. He graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam in 2007, and pursued further studies at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent, Belgium.