Portfolio: Hendrik Dijk

by Lynn Woods, March 27, 2009

In his life and art, Hendrik Dijk defies the current fashion for specialization. He is a painter, photographer, architectural and industrial designer, sculptor, teacher, contractor, and community leader. Last fall, he traveled to Virginia Tech to present a painting commissioned by the university to commemorate the 2007 shooting tragedy. It was an abstract work with a luminous blue background titled Threads of Remembrance. His exhibition this month at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Arts (April 4 to April 30) couldn’t be more different—photographs of World War II concrete bunkers in the Dutch countryside. This fall, Dijk will exhibit large-scale geometric paintings at R&F Handmade Paints in Kingston.

Born and raised in the Netherlands, Dijk moved to Kingston in 1986 and was one of the pioneers who sparked the renaissance of the Rondout district. His murals still adorn forlorn corners of the city, and the 1851 firehouse he and his wife bought and restored has become a beloved landmark.

Dijk is a co-founder and past president of the Arts Society of Kingston and founder of the Kingston Biennial Sculpture Exhibition. His geometric paintings are in collections around the world and have been exhibited at leading venues in the Mid-Hudson Valley, including the Kleinert/James and Carrie Haddad galleries and the Samuel Dorsky Museum at SUNY New Paltz. www.hendrikdijk.com.