Suzanne Jongmans recreates paintings with recycled materials
Suzanne Jongmans bridges centuries of image-making in her retrospective Rewriting History, on view at Dordts Patriciërshuis in Dordrecht, Netherlands, until October 26th, 2025. Within the stately 18th-century townhouse, Jongmans’ photographs, eerily reminiscent of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, confront visitors with an unexpected tension, as beneath their luminous serenity lies a fabric of plastic, foam, and bubble wrap (find designboom’s previous coverage here). Her portraits transform disposable packaging materials into sculptural costumes, restaging the poise and symbolism of old Dutch masters and reflecting on today’s culture of mass consumption.
Jongmans spends weeks sewing the garments herself before assembling hundreds of photographic fragments into a single image, building layer upon layer, as painters once applied glaze and pigment. Through this time-intensive process, she restores the tactile and temporal weight once inherent in painting and clothing production, exposing its contrast with the immediacy and disposability of contemporary life.
In Resonance (2021) reflects the interconnected vibrations of the universe | all images by Suzanne Jongmans
Rewriting History on view at the Dordts Patriciërshuis museum
Rewriting History spans the historic rooms of the Dordts Patriciërshuis museum, where Jongmans’ hyperreal portraits seem to complete the antique interiors of the house. Materials once destined for waste bins acquire the dignity of brocade, while faces captured in modern light echo the solemnity of another age. This interplay, as Jongmans explains, ‘shows how the historical setting can strengthen and enrich the contemporary artwork and vice versa.’
Existential dualities, love and loss, transience and eternity, youth and maturity, form the emotional thread through her practice. Costumes and still lifes become vehicles for introspection and connection, translating personal encounters into universal reflections. ‘Clothing has always been a sign and a means of communication,’ the Dutch photographer notes, using the material and metaphorical layers of attire to question how identity and belonging are constructed.
Princes Eva
Reimagining Tradition Through Material and Form
Among the works on view are Solitude (2014), where a young woman in a foam-rubber habit holds a sprig of jasmine, symbolizing purity and introspection; Mind Over Matter: Present (2015), a self-portrait with the artist’s son exploring motherhood and presence; and In Resonance (2021), a meditation on vibrational connectivity in the universe. In The Whole of Who We Are (2023), battered marbles resembling planets become symbols of creativity and human potential.
Jongmans’ multidisciplinary practice combines photography, costume design, sculpture, and textile craft. The exhibition surveys her oeuvre but also reveals her process of transforming the ordinary into the sublime, the disposable into the enduring.
Mind over Matter – Cutting Loose
Mind over Matter – Closure
Mind over Matter – Solitude | the model in a foam habit, holding jasmine as a symbol of purity and strength
Prins Jona | Jona at 9, dressed as a young nobleman with a foam-heart collar
Julie, portrait of a woman
Kindred Spirits – Present | a self-portrait with the artist’s son, exploring Present as a gift and the current moment
Mind over Matter – Room for change
Kindred Spirits – The Receptive Mode
project info:
name: Rewriting History
artist: Suzanne Jongmans | @suzannejongmans
location: Dordts Patriciërshuis | @dordts_patriciershuis, Dordrecht, The Netherlands
dates: April 26th – October 26th, 2025
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