Jason Hendrik Hansma

Untitled (in minor)
Acrylic, alcohol-based paint on canvas
180cm x 280cm x 3

  1. A person stands beside a magenta-purple painting, their hand pressing gold leaf onto a seam. The hand’s position suggests the act of repair or application. A section of the wall catches the flash, showing subtle texture and traces of previous handling. The person’s forearm bears tattoos partially visible against a dark sleeve.
  2. A worktable covered in plastic sheeting holds a brush with pale bristles, a small pencil, strips of paper flecked with gold, and scattered workshop tools. The light falls across the table unevenly, creating zones of warmth and shadow. Beneath the surface, parts of a floor and a case are just visible, indicating an installation in progress.
  3. Several sheets of paper are taped to a white wall with fluorescent strips of yellow, green, and red tape. The arrangement includes typed notes, sketches, and a small printed reproduction of a classical painting. Beneath them, a pale purple panel leans against the wall. A black cable and socket run along the right edge, suggesting a studio or workspace setting.
  4. A person stands beside a table covered in sheets of paper and coloured materials. Their hand holds a print containing two purple rectangular fields. Around them lie golden and violet papers, small black-and-white images, and transparent folders. Sunlight cuts across the table, catching the edges of the papers and the folds of the white shirt the person is wearing.
  5. A desk stands beneath tall windows through which late afternoon light enters the room. On the table lies an open notebook, a stack of papers, and a vase filled with bright flowers—red, pink, and orange stems rising unevenly. Shadows from the window frames fall across the surface, dividing it into geometric bands of light. Outside, the leaves of nearby trees catch the same sunlight, casting a soft green reflection onto the glass.
  6. A tall panel painted in purple is carried across a large room with high windows and theatre lighting overhead. The person’s back faces the camera as they move the structure toward a stage-like platform. Two additional panels lean against the wall, while the light from the windows outlines the scale of the interior space.
  7. A person leans beneath a purple panel, holding a small knife against its edge. Their arm, marked by tattoos of a snake and other figures, is caught in the flash. The person’s focus appears on a fine detail near the corner, possibly trimming or adjusting the panel’s surface.
  8. Plastic sheeting covers the floor of a room, where several bottles of purple paint have been placed. Some bottles stand upright, while one balances precariously on another. Near them, a roller and brush rest beside an open jar, spilling paint onto the surface below. The pigment pools and splatters across the plastic, mingling with faint reflections of light from the surrounding space.
  9. An array of LED panels fills the frame. Each unit, marked “MPLED,” connects through a lattice of black cables and orange connectors. A single metal pipe runs vertically through the centre, interrupting the near-symmetry of the modular grid. The light reveals the panels’ heat sinks, ridged and matte, forming a surface that reads as both mechanical and patterned.

Selected work

Jason Hendrik Hansma’s (b.1988) work explores the in-between, the liminal, and the nearly articulate. Drawing from a wide range of references and materials, Hansma’s work deals with standards, architectural, cultural, and physical, along with how works are made outside of standardized norms. For Hansma, a photograph might be created over months, an entire exhibition might happen in ‘transitional spaces’ such as hallways, doorways, or window sills. A hand-stitched curtain slows down an exhibition’s motion, providing a soft cut moved by a slight breeze from outside air or a film focuses on the moment a wave crashes into architecture. Amateur videos of embers recorded from bushfires are cut to chopped and screwed, and textiles from the artist’s ancestors are refolded and formed into new painterly landscapes. In the work, language (and the loss of language) plays a key role in moving through the politics of aesthetics to reconsider the means we use to locate ourselves through and with each other.

Hansma’s work is grounded in deep, long-term and extensive research. He draws on fields such as archival studies, philosophy, language development, and digital culture. He often forms small research teams with experts from different backgrounds, allowing ideas to grow through dialogue and shared inquiry. Projects unfold slowly over several years, with materials, language, and ethics evolving together over time.

Jason was born in Lahore Pakistan, completed a Master of Fine Art at the Piet Zwart Institute, and was a participant at the Jan van Eyck.

Exhibitions, performances, readings, and screenings have been included at the Grand Palais, UNESCO, Bauhaus, Dessau, Maison van Doesburg, KADIST, Frac Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Art Basel Hong Kong’s Satellite Program, Eye Filmmuseum, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius, Centre Georges Pompidou, Parc Saint-Léger Centre d’art Contemporain, Centre International d’art et du paysage de l’île de Vassivière, Center For Contemporary Art Futura, Jan van Eyck and De Appel amongst others.

Hansma’s work has been featured in Frieze Magazine, Artforum, Vogue Magazine, Purple Magazine, Vanity Fair, Flash Art, NSS Magazine, amongst others. His work has been screened as an artistic address to both the European Parliament and the World Economic Forum.

Jason Hendrik Hansma has been a tutor at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, the Master Program at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague (KABK), Master of Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam, Brno University of Technology Faculty of Fine Arts, Artez, St. Joost School of Art & Design, Sandberg Instituut and was a Rietveld/Sandberg research fellow. Jason is also an advisor to the Mondriaan Fonds (Dutch National Visual Arts Foundation) committee.

Jason is co-director and co-curator of Shimmer (along with curator Eloise Sweetman), an exhibition space and curatorial studio. Shimmer has collaborated with and shown over 200 practices such as stanley brouwn, Raqs Media Collective, Ellen Gallagher, Charlotte Posenenske, Theo van Doesburg, Marcel Duchamp, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Lawrence Weiner, amongst others.

Jason lives and works in Rotterdam and Berlin.

Aside from this website, an additional portfolio is downloadable here

Recent texts/books

  • Nocturnalities –
    Published by Jesse Presse and Onomatopee Projects, 2025

    Download Here

  • In Our Real Life
    New book of photography and essays, published by Shimmer Press 2024

  • Say it Right
    published by the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut, research fellowship project, 2022

    Download Here

  • The Voice that Remains – PUBLICS Helsinki
    Published by Lugemik & PUBLICS, 2024

    Download Here

  • When it Comes to Certain Songs, Aphasia, the Studio, Abstraction and Disability.
    With annotations by Élisabeth Lebovici, Joseph Grigely, and Gordon Hall, 2019

    Download Here

  • A Centre Cannot Hold
    New publication with a text by Jo-ey Tang, 2020

    Download Here

Forthcoming/Recent

  • 2019
    Reading and panel discussion at De Appel, Amsterdam
  • 2019
    Reading by Kris Dittel at De Appel for Amsterdam Art Weekend
  • 2019
    ‘When it Comes to Certain Rooms’ La Maison Van Doesburg, Paris
  • 2019
    De l’île au monde, Centre international d’art et du paysage Île de Vassivière
  • 2019
    Il est une fois dans l’Ouest, Frac Aquitaine – La MECA, Bordeaux
  • 2019
    State of Transparency, Looiersgracht 60 Amsterdam
  • 2019
    LW/LW with Louwrien Wijers and Lawrence Weiner at Shimmer (curator)
  • 2019
    Residency and exhibition at La Maison Van Doesburg, Paris
  • 2019
    Exhibition at Videotage and Art Basel, Hong Kong