Throughout his career, Sebastiaan Bremer (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1970) has used pre-existing images to explore ideas of time, memory, and meaning. In his early years, he meticulously reproduced personal snapshots in painting. Over time, this process of re-envisioning visual documents led him to experiment with different techniques and materials. He sought to alter the image’s material existence, add another dimension, and shift the viewer’s perception of its purported meaning. In the late 1990s he began drawing directly on photographic surfaces, covering images with intricate patterns of strokes and dots or applying splashes of paint and ink.

Since then, Bremer has further complicated this process by cutting and carving away sections of photographic emulsion to create etched surfaces and by incorporating collage techniques to produce hybrid images. He has expanded his range of visual sources—from classical sculpture to modernist photography—and his choice of media, as in Bloemen, his series of reworked vintage lithographic flower prints. He has also explored multimedia installations incorporating projection, sculpture, found objects, and sound, notably in Σπήλαιο /Spilaio (2015) at Hales Gallery, and Sanctuary (2018) in Brooklyn, NY and 21cMuseum Hotels, Nashville.

In 2020, Bremer presented Nocturne at Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, and I Am New Here at Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam, debuting a body of work made on archival fadeless gloss paper without photographic imagery. These exhibitions introduced a large series of portraits and a diptych that extended his exploration of surface and perception. In 2022, he returned to Edwynn Houk Gallery with New Portraits. In 2026, he will present Super Modern Things at Edwynn Houk Gallery, further developing recent investigations into historical painting, abstraction and materiality.

His recent institutional exhibitions include Life During Wartime: Art in the Time of the Coronavirus (2020) University of Southern Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Abrasive Paradise (2022) at Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort and We Are Nature (2025) at the Singer Museum Laren, The Netherlands.

Bremer participated in residencies at Art Omi (2001), Lower East Side Printshop (2006–2008, 2014, 2015, 2017), Het Vijfde Seizoen (2009), Graphicstudio USF Institute for Reseach in Art (2023) and MacDowell (2018) for which he also received a Pollock-Krasner Grant in 2018. He has held visiting professorships at Virginia Commonwealth University (2006), the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (Copenhagen), the Cooper Union, the School of Visual Arts (New York), the University of Vermont (2011), and the University of Tennessee (2012), among others.

His work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, Buffalo AKG Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Gemeentemuseum (The Hague), The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Storefront for Art and Architecture (New York), Museum of Modern Art- PS1, Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Tang Teaching Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and The Andy Warhol Museum.

Bremer’s work is represented in important private and public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC , the Berger Collection Zurich/Hong Kong, Zabludowicz Trust, and the Rabobank, UBS, and AkzoNobel Collections.

He is currently represented by Edwynn Houk Gallery (New York), Hales Gallery (London), and Galerie Ron Mandos (Amsterdam).

His work is regularly featured at major international fairs, including Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Basel, The Armory Show, Paris Photo, and AIPAD Photography Show.

Contact: studio@sebastiaanbremer.net

Instagram: @bascalyer