Mart Krijger (born 1950) is a Dutch artist who combines craftsmanship, luxurious materials, and global influences in a recognizable, distinctive visual language. His work occupies the intersection of design and fine art, with a strong emphasis on tactility, brilliance, and layering.
As the son of an artist, Krijger grew up in a creative environment. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and began his career as a jewelry designer. This background is still visible in the refined detailing and almost obsessive attention to finish in his current work. Where a jeweler thinks in terms of precision and material tension, Krijger translates this into monumental wall objects and sculptural panels.
Around 2014, he made a conscious career shift: from applied art to fully autonomous creation. In his own studio, he developed a signature style that is now internationally recognized. His work has found its way to galleries and collectors in New York, Dubai, Bangkok, and Singapore, among other places.
Krijger is known for his daring combinations of materials. In his early, iconic Skull Art series, he gave water buffalo and oryx skulls new life by adorning them with engravings, crystals, gold leaf, and exotic leather. Later, the focus shifted to large-scale wall panels: carefully constructed mosaics of shells, wood, marble, silk, feathers, fish leather, and other unexpected materials. Each surface is often sealed with a layer of high-quality epoxy—his signature "liquid gloss"—which deepens color and texture and gives the work an almost liquid sheen.
Thematically, Krijger moves between nature and pop culture. Fish in the Fish Mania series, monumental insects in Insetti Giganto, and recent series featuring sneakers and Plastic Fantastic demonstrate his fascination with both organic forms and contemporary icons. In all these works, he fuses influences from different cultures into what he describes as a form of "global fusion."
The result is art that is both exuberant and refined: rich in material, strong in decorative power, yet always underpinned by craftsmanship and a keen eye for detail.
