Corporate Despair Painting

Korneel Jeuken (The Netherlands, 1975) extracts objects from mundane contexts and gives them new meaning to create bold drawings on cardboard cutouts. Inspired by urban and comic art, Korneel draws his subjects from life as a father and regular guy moving through the streets, nature, and the internet. His models include his children, their toys, and himself. He creates new versions of world leaders, musicians, and football players. Korneel takes these images, cuts, pastes, and reshapes them, and adjusts their colors. A new, drawn reality of floating men and masked superchildren emerge. Korneel’s illustrated wall objects dialogue with their surroundings. The cardboard surfaces could be found on the street but are transformed by their high gloss faces. Their edges are left matte, giving them broad, rough sides, that make the objects seem to rise from the wall they’re hung on. These contrasts suit the absurd world he creates.