photographer suzanne jongmans recreates renaissance portraits using packaging 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."

"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.'"

Suzanne Jongmans stages hyperreal portraits and still lifes in the Dordts Patriciërshuis in Dordrecht through October 26, 2025. She constructs sculptural costumes from plastic, foam, and bubble wrap, sewing garments over weeks and assembling hundreds of photographic fragments into single images. Her process mimics painters' layered glazing, restoring tactile and temporal weight to made objects while contrasting with contemporary disposability. The portraits visually reference Renaissance, Baroque, and Dutch master traditions, integrating with the museum's antique interiors. Themes of transience and permanence, love and loss, youth and maturity inform the work, using reclaimed packaging to question mass consumption and cultural value.

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