Biography
Rafaël Rozendaal (1980) is a Dutch-Brazilian artist who currently lives in New York. He uses the internet as his canvas. Rozendaal’s artistic practice comprises animations, websites, NFTs, installations, tapestries, prints and writing. His work takes shape through a range of transformations – from movement into abstraction, from virtual into physical space, and from website and NFTs to print – with all of them informing each other. All of his works have one thing in common: they stem from a fascination with moving images and interactivity in its most basic form. Although Rozendaal is best known for his artworks in the form of websites and NFTs he sees no hierarchy between his digital and physical works: ‘The experience that you have when you are at home using Abstract Browsing on your computer is as authentic as viewing one of the tapestries in a gallery. From my point of view: the Internet is like a waterfall, an exhibition more like an aquarium’.
Rozendaal gained recognition by using the internet as his canvas, but for his latest series of works, he turned his attention to the traditional canvas. Despite the new medium, his signature style is unmistakable, and his visual language is rooted in the digital world. The paintings explore the tension between abstraction and figuration, something he calls "minimal figuration". How few lines are needed to depict a landscape or a glass of water? This abstraction of everyday subjects and scenes runs like a thread through Rozendaal's oeuvre and is reminiscent of early video games, leaving the viewer with a sense of suggested movement, as if the depicted places are waiting for something to happen in them.
His work is regularly exhibited, not only in Europe and the U.S. but also in Asia and South America. He has worked with institutions such as the MoMA New York, Centre Pompidou, the Whitney Museum, the Folkwang Museum, Kunstverein Frankfurt, Media Art Institute and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He is a regular speaker on digital art topics and his work is discussed in international publications such as Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Flash Art and Interview. Rozendaal is also the founder of the exhibition concept Bring Your Own Beamer, an evening where artists bring their own projectors to display their digital work. Since 2010 there have been over 100 BYOB exhibitions, including one at the Venice Biennale.
Rozendaal’s work has been exhibited, amongst others, at the following venues: MoMA (USA), Folkwang Museum (DE), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (USA), Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (NL), Kunstverein Frankfurt, (DE), Kawasaki City Museum,Kawasaki (JP), New Museum, New York (NY, USA), Nam June Paik Art Center Seoul (KOR), Hammer Museum Los Angeles (USA), Kunsthal Rotterdam (NL), MOTI Museum Breda (NL), Times Square Midnight Moments New York (NY, USA), Telfair Museum, Savannah (GA, USA), Centre d’Art Bastille, Grenoble (FR), With Project Space, New York (NY, USA) and Towada Art Center (JP).
Publications: Rafaël Rozendaal, Everything, Always, Everywhere, 2017, Valiz.