Fons Haagmans

Some recent solo exhibitions
Galerie Onrust , Amsterdam 2008, 'Les Baroques'
The Mayor Gallery, London 2008, 'Meat, Sauce and Wine'
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht 2007, 'Lost Highway'
Steendrukkerij Amsterdam bv, 2007, 'L'Etoile Magique'

Some recent group exhibitions
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2009, 'Kunst4Kids'
Hedah, Maastricht 2009,'Jeugdzonde. Over opus één en opus min één'
Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede 2007, 'Collectie depot VBVR: Peter Struycken'
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht 2006, 'Travelin Light'
Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen 2005, 'Moderne Favorieten: 50 jaar collectie moderne kunst'

Selected publications
Jurrie Poot, Fons Haagmans: l'étoile magique, Amsterdam: Steendrukkerij Amsterdam 2007
A. Fiedler [et al.], Fons Haagmans, Maastricht: Bonnefantenmuseum 2007
Kick Splinter, De voorstelling: Nederlandse kunst in het Stedelijk Paleis, Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum 2000
Ulrich Loock [et al.], Fons Haagmans, Bern: Kunsthalle Bern 1993

Selected public and corporate collections
Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, NL • Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, NL • Stadsgalerij Heerlen, NL • Abn Amro Kunststichting, NL • Ahold Kunst Stichting, NL • Akzo Nobel Art Foundation, NL • Eneco Holding nv, NL • Kunstcollectie kpn, NL • TNT Post Kunstcollectie, NL

As a painter, Fons Haagmans explores the medium in a highly singular fashion. After an expressionist period, in the 1980s he developed a more minimalist approach with decorative elements. Haagmans bases visual elements on the magical square, the pack of cards, the Tarot and figures taken from heraldry and engravings. Haagmans' figures are symbolic; their precise meanings have long vanished from collective memory although they evidently refer to something or someone beyond the individual. Haagmans isolates, enlarges and places these figures in a lifeless environment. It was this process that created the series of works Lost Highway (2003), in which Haagmans references heroes form country & western music. The viewer can make out stars like Hank Williams and Tammy Wynette. The appeal of Haagmans' painting lies primarily in the varying levels of abstraction with which he renders his sequences of images.

Fons Haagmans was advisor at the Rijksakademie in the period 1990-1995.
He won the Jeanne Oosting Award (NL) in 1998.