"Muse (Frank Ziegert)" Collage

Jimi Dams (b. June 21, 1963, Mortsel, Belgium) is a Belgian-born artist based in New York City. Following his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, he attended the Higher Pedagogical Institute in Brussels, where he earned his teaching degree in 1984. After completing his studies, Dams returned to Antwerp and began establishing his artistic practice.
Emerging in the early 1980s, Dams developed a multidisciplinary body of work encompassing printmaking, drawing, painting, and collage. In 1997, he relocated to New York City, settling in the East Village, where he continues to live and work.

Dams’ practice is characterized by a contemporary reinterpretation of neo-pointillism, centered on the dot as both a formal and conceptual unit. Across his work, he explores the accumulation, repetition, and density of individual marks. His drawings employ graphite marks in varying densities and configurations, while his signature collages are constructed from meticulously applied sequins, which accumulate into luminous, reflective images.

Portraiture has remained central to Dams’ oeuvre since the early 1980s. His earliest portraits took the form of linocuts depicting people within his immediate social and cultural milieu, including figures associated with and surrounding the punk movement. He subsequently developed his portrait practice through graphite drawings on vellum before arriving at the sequin-based portraits for which he is particularly known.

Dams’ early exhibitions focused on the punk movement and its surrounding underground culture, bringing him into contact with figures including Michael Clark, Tom Lanoye, Peter Verhelst, Dennis Cooper, and Amanda Lear. These early encounters and relationships informed an ongoing engagement with portraiture, subculture, and the representation of individuals within contemporary cultural life.

Dams’ work has been exhibited internationally at galleries including Galerie Richard / Oz, Paris; EXPRMNTL, Toulouse; Centre Space / ACAVA, London; Live Stock Market, London; Torch Gallery, Amsterdam; Cokkie Snoei, Rotterdam; Flatland Gallery, Utrecht; Gracie Mansion Gallery, New York; Allston Skirt Gallery, Boston; Keijsers Koning Gallery, Dallas; TW Fine Art, Palm Beach; Aeroplastics, Brussels; and S&H De Buck, Ghent.