After years of experimentation with video, multimedia, installations and performances (sometimes lasting for days), De Jong found sculpture to be the best medium to express and shape his fascination with the dark, violent side of existence. The work The Iceman Cometh (2001), which was shown in the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, marked his breakthrough. This monumental group of sculptures was made entirely from Styrofoam insulation panels and polyurethane foam, materials that for De Jong embody the fragile boundary between security and chaos.
In the work that De Jong created for the Prix de Rome in 2003, he assembled a collection of fear-inspiring figures around a campfire; figures who have lost their humanity in the complexity of modern society.
In 2004, De Jong was honoured with the KDR KunstRAI prize. The jury had high praise for the adventurous way in which he manages to give a contemporary twist to a traditional medium like sculpture: 'With a masterly hand he models insulating materials into expressive, narrative objects and scenes, displaying uneasy and unheimisch aspects as well as caricatural and humorous ones.'
This first publication about the work of Folkert de Jong is being published as a result of his winning the KDR KunstRAI prize. During KunstRAI 2005, attention will once again be focused on his work in a solo stand by Upstream Gallery.
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