White elastic Calvin Klein waistbands embrace the enticing curves of the modern goddesses of fertility and abundance, whose tanned thighs and robust breasts seem at odds with the brand's minimalist aesthetic. The faces of the five women, which share a family resemblance, are portrayed in an erratic expressionist manner, distorted and asymmetric features contoured by chaotic shadows. Their gazes — directed straight at the viewer — exude detachment, conveying a sense of ennui characteristically present in those who seem to have everything.
Taken from a Calvin Klein ad campaign featuring the Kardashian sisters, this painting by Dutch artist Jade Van der Mark will be on display at her debut solo show at Michael Janssen, "Collection Jade Van der Mark Spring/Summer 2024." The exhibition delves into the emotional yearning of consumerist society through the subject matter of fashion collections and luxury brand campaigns, effectively capturing the ever-shifting zeitgeist. With a background in fashion, Van der Mark conducts artistic research on the themes, imagery, and messages employed in marketing to mirror the values and ideals that resonate within contemporary mass culture at a given moment in time.
The protagonists of her paintings include celebrities, fashion show attendees, and models —the holograms of late capitalism, instruments through which new sensory frameworks of collective fictions and cultural identity are forged. In addition to the Kardashians, the Dutch artist portrays such luminaries as Pharrell Williams, whose creative work has reshaped paradigms in the fashion and entertainment industries. In the work “Voices of fire, JOY”, the record producer is depicted at the opening of his debut collection for Louis Vuitton at the Pont Neuf in Paris, showcasing the famous LV Damier check pattern reinvented in an array of vibrant reds, blues, greens, and yellows. "This moment is dedicated to the giant before me," wrote Williams in his notes, paying a tribute to the former artistic director of the brand Virgil Abloh, who tragically passed away from cancer in 2021.
For the posthumous presentation of Virgil Abloh's collection in Miami, Louis Vuitton erected a monumental, multicolored statue of the prolific streetwear designer, which towered above the crowd of fashionistas during the runway show. Evoking the grandeur of a mythological demigod, Abloh's monolith served as the inspiration for the painting "LV Giants", which portrays models clad in the clothing created by the fashion designer. Van der Mark utilizes large-scale formats to convey the megalomaniac spirit of the fashion industry, which indoctrinates consumers through expertly calculated branding. Human-size canvases enhance the sense of heightened reality, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the scenes depicted on a deeper level. This format is also reminiscent of fashion campaigns prominently displayed on billboards, featuring contemporary icons who exert influence from above—disproportionately large and seemingly flawless, the deities of today's superficial modernity.
Van der Mark observes a society consumed by the idea that personal happiness is predicated on purchasing and owning material possessions. She often visits the department store Selfridges with her sketchbook to draw inspiration and "look for faces that would speak to her." As astutely noted by stylist Aja Barber in her book "Consumed," the success of fashion brands lies in the fact that 'they know that, if it can be marketed to us in the right way, we'll buy it because we perceive more value in it than we do in ourselves.' Thriving on a collective sense of insecurity, trends tap into humans' inherent desire to make individuality to societal standards of beauty.
But in contrast to the neurotic fashion industry's tendency to conceal and mask anything deemed insufficiently glamorous, Van der Mark's canvases boldly portray its controversies, embracing exaggeration and unveiling rather than hiding. Her works are characterized by abrupt vividness and maximalism, featuring rich colors, meticulous accents, and ornate detailing. They possess an inherent dynamism and depth, accentuated by the use of the Impasto technique, which imparts a sculptural quality. When standing in front of a Van der Mark canvas, the viewer can sense the physicality of the piece, achieved through the multi-layering of oil paint, creating a haptic, textural feel as if the painting were a piece of clothing.
The artist actively experiments with canvas formats, employing diptych-like structures to amplify the sense of perspective, which works particularly well with scenes involving natural settings like those in the artworks "JACQUEMUS, Back to Nature" and “Louis Vuitton/JEFFKOONS.” Both campaigns focus primarily on bag collections. Executed in soft yellow and the pistachio green hues iconic to the luxury bag brand, the Jacquemus painting depicts models emerging from the wheat field, gently rippling under the sunless sky. The artist calls this campaign "an emotional self-portrait, cloaked in a fashion house jacket," as it holds an intimate connection with her childhood spent among ample grain fields in a Dutch farm town.
“Louis Vuitton/JEFFKOONS” showcases two female models reclining amidst abundant vegetation, surrounded by luxury accessories crafted in collaboration with Jeff Koons. The bags feature reproductions of works by French modernist painters Claude Monet, Paul Gauguin, and Édouard Manet, reintroducing the old masters to the general public. Monet's famous water lilies appear both on the bag and in the landscape, creating an intriguing mirrored composition. Meanwhile, “The Luncheon on the Grass” serves as a conceptual frame that bridges the notion of bourgeois leisure from different epochs, conceptually transforming Manet’s painting into a 19th-century fashion campaign.
Through her insightful works, Jade Van der Mark reveals the fashion realm as "a political economy of the performative self," as Charles Baudelaire eloquently put it. The industry operates as a powerful tool for shaping collective identity, conveying and, at times, imposing values, aspirations, and even political affiliations. In this context, fashion campaigns transcend mere advertising status; they become tools of ideological influence and cultural artifacts in equal measure, mirroring and shaping the shifting landscapes of culture and aesthetics over the decades.