Teun Hocks
Born and raised in The Netherlands, artist Teun Hocks had spent his entire life absorbed in different kinds of mixed-medium art, eventually finding his niche in a genius combination of photography and painting that leaves a deep mark on everyone who witnesses it. His most famous work is currently displayed in Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen in the heart of Rotterdam.
269. UNTITLED, 2017. Oil on sepia toned gelatin silver print. Teun Hocks. Retrieved from TORCH Gallery archive. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Hocks was born in Leiden in 1947 but studied at an art academy in Breda, where he would later spend most of his life. Even though he always felt that art was his life’s calling, for years he struggled to find a specific medium that would bring him the success he was capable of, trying even comedic performance art and teaching art at universities. Eventually, he discovered a pretty uncommon genre that brings magical realism to a whole different level—he combined photography, specifically self-portraits, with oil painting. Always interested in the whimsical and surreal, Hocks found a perfect expression medium for his unique and brilliant mind. He devoted himself to this medium for the rest of his life, which recently ended in 2022.
Seeing Hocks’ paintings for the first time begs a large number of questions. At first glance, they might appear perfectly regular—most of them feature the same old man in what appear to be mundane situations. But the more you look, the more the stories get unraveled in front of you. The old man in the paintings is actually Hocks himself, and the background is arranged by using everyday objects combined with huge paintings that cover entire walls and/or floors, usually of the sea, space, or sky. The background looks like it was painted directly on the canvas and not made life-size for the photographs, which would definitely be an easier option. So why did he choose this roundabout way of creating them, and only added the last touches of paint on canvas?
273. UNTITLED, 2019. Oil on sepia toned gelatin silver print. Teun Hocks. Retrieved from TORCH Gallery archive. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Hocks was a storyteller above all else. He enjoyed creating his works so much that he wanted to get completely absorbed into their story, and didn’t mind using unconventional or inconvenient ways to make that happen. But what were those stories exactly? Curiously, Hocks didn’t title his works, naming them instead “Untitled” with a chronological number next to it. When asked about this unusual choice, he claimed he didn’t want to inscribe a meaning into his work before audiences had a chance to find it out for themselves. Every painting has multiple possible storylines and meanings, and he found it important for them to remain vague because the real enjoyment of his art came from discovering those meanings for yourself. He thought it was crucial for everyone to be able to put their own story into the artworks.
204. UNTITLED, 2003. Oil on sepia toned gelatin silver print. Teun Hocks. Retrieved from TORCH Gallery archive. © All rights belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.
Even though he’s frequently overlooked by art lovers, his art is often considered one of the peaks of Dutch magical realism and surrealism since Hocks in his self-portraits finds himself in all kinds of bizarre and unrealistic situations. They mostly convey an atmosphere of self-deprecation, confusion, vulnerability, disillusionment, and a general wonder about the world around us. He also makes good use of metaphors, symbolism, and parallels, illustrating these situations in often comedic or tragi-comic ways. Hocks' art is something you need to return to again and again to properly understand it, and even then, you can only understand your own interpretation of it, which makes it both fascinating and slightly frustrating. But that is what he ultimately wanted to achieve—he wanted to have his audiences returning to the stories in his paintings again and again and getting completely absorbed in them.
