Felix de Rooy

Born 1952 in Willemstad, Curaçao
Lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands

White Bay Power Station

Rebirth, 1985

Apocalypse, 1986

The Spectre of Civilisation, 1985

Death Becomes Him, 1992

Astral Madonna, 1986

Resurrection, 1997

Mother Earth, 1988

digital print on acrylic
Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from Mondriaan Fund
Courtesy the artist

Cosmos and dust, glaciers and mountain-ridges, serpents, skulls and a mushroom cloud. Artist Felix de Rooy revels in the imaginary of the end of times. Unlike the judgement of a single god, however, de Rooy’s Apocalypse series conjures a gallery of new deities that rise from the remains of civilizations and from the most mundane materials of the everyday.

De Rooy was born on the island of Curaçao as an Afro- Caribbean subject of Dutch colonial rule and, over a decades-long career presenting works in theater, film, as well as curation, he has challenged the ongoing legacy of colonialism, the meaning of Afro-Caribbean and gender identities in art. Blending stories and symbols from across time and cultures de Rooy’s practice is an embodiment of the artist’s experience as a postcolonial subject. As he explains, “In my blood flows together: Amazon Indians, African slaves, slaveowners, and abolitionists from Holland, Germany, France, and Portugal.”

Refusing any categories of marginalisation de Rooy claims instead a radical artistic imagination as his birthright. “As the hidden heir to the colonial orgasm, as the extramarital bastard exorcised from the European testament, I escape the prison of genetic and historical identity,” he declares.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.