Joram Roukes
Joram Roukes is a Dutch contemporary artist whose richly layered paintings combine references drawn from popular culture, global affairs, and personal experience. Through unexpected juxtapositions of figures, symbols, and fragmented imagery, he creates surreal narratives that balance dark humour with introspection, inviting multiple interpretations and open-ended reflection.
Biography
Bio
Joram Roukes was born in Lelystad, The Netherlands, in 1983. He lives and works in the small city of Workum.
Academic Carrer
Roukes earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Minerva Academy of Arts in Groningen in 2006. In 2008, he received a stipend from the Dutch National Arts Foundation (then Fonds BKVB, now Mondriaan Fund), which enabled him to establish an artist residency in Brooklyn, New York.
Professional Carrer
Roukes has exhibited internationally in cities including Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and London. He is currently represented by StolenSpace and CASS Contemporary in Tampa. Since 2015, he has also developed a significant public art practice, creating large-scale murals around the world.
Influences
Roukes' practice draws on popular culture, contemporary society, and personal experience, combining recognisable imagery with surreal compositions that explore themes of identity, human behaviour, and global affairs. Balancing humour, symbolism, and ambiguity, his work encourages viewers to construct their own narratives and interpretations.
Works from Joram Roukes
Blue Bull
Joram Roukes
Edition of /30 + 5 AP
Giclée print and three-colour screen print on paper
Hand-finished, signed and numbered by the artist
Velvet 270 g/m2 paper
75 × 55 cm
2026
Emerging from Joram Roukes’ ongoing exploration of identity and the symbols that shape contemporary culture, Blue Bull reflects on the evolving perceptions of masculinity through a dialogue between three protagonists: a blue bull, a red doberman, and a solitary perch. Suspended within a composition that resists fixed orientation, the figures invite multiple readings, suggesting that ideas of strength, vulnerability, and power are never absolute, but continuously shaped by perspective.
Characteristic of Roukes' practice, disparate images, cultural references, and symbolic elements are brought together into layered compositions that remain open to multiple interpretations. Working across painting, collage, and digital processes, the artist constructs richly textured visual worlds where familiar forms are continually recontextualised. For this edition, the original composition has been reworked through a transformed background, screen-printed interventions, and hand-finished details, allowing the dialogue between the three protagonists to come into sharper focus.



