Cees Post (1942) makes small, constructivist works of art that you can wear on clothing, but that also come into their own in a display case. He calls them 'object jewellery'. Minimal Art, with a refined interplay of lines that you have to take a close look at. Worn as jewelry, the lines come to life through the movement. The shiny silver contributes to that.

Cees Post trained as a gold and silversmith in Schoonhoven, where he already made his first abstract-geometric jewelery in 1958. At the Free Academy in The Hague he trained in graphic design. There he developed his abstract lines to great heights, but then on paper. In those years he felt related to the 'pure art' of the Zero artists.

His first jewelery exhibition in 1982, twenty years after leaving Schoonhoven, marked the start of a serious resumption of goldsmithing for him. One jewelry exhibition after another followed and his fame grew. In 1990 his work was selected for the major Benelux exhibition 'Contemporary jewelery art 1990' and in 2000 he designed the Wilhelminaring, the national oeuvre prize that is awarded every two years to a prominent sculptor.

Straight lines of silver and sleek geometric shapes are characteristic of his work. Rectangles, triangles or squares, spatially or in the plane, with staggered, shifting or wavy lines. Diagonal lines that suggest depth, but evoke an opposing force through a change of direction. Optical effects are created by shifting and jumping. It is always an investigation into the geometric form in all its variations. The compositions are not created according to a pre-imposed number system, but completely emotionally.

The graphic effects are best expressed in silver (oxidized, shiny or matte). Post occasionally uses matted yellow gold as a counter form or demarcation. Silver is not easy to transform into a tight pattern. This requires great technical and craft skills. Post tries to achieve the highest attainable perfection. The distance between the silver bars must be accurate to one tenth of a millimetre.

In Post's work a development towards an ever further limitation of the means of form is striking. For the last ten years, Cees Post has worked almost exclusively with the square as a basis, within which he sets his lines. Post: 'For me, a square is both an anchor point and a challenge in my search for beauty. The square is my frame of mind'. It is precisely this self-imposed limitation that forces us to deepen our understanding. Within the square, the abstract lines make the rhythms dance, bring balance and disrupt it again. Cees Post shows how, as an artist, you can explore the terrain of feeling with extremely frugal means.

To date, Cees Post has had more than two hundred group and solo exhibitions at home and abroad and his objects have been shown at major fairs and jewelery exhibitions. CODA Apeldoorn devoted attention to his work in 2012 and 2022.

CURRICULUM VITAE
Exhibitions (selection):

2022: Characteristic (solo exhibition Pulchri Studio, The Hague)

2022: TZT 071 (solo exhibition Bos Fine Art Utrecht)

2022: LijnRecht (solo exhibition Coda Museum Apeldoorn)

2021: Imagination in Dialogue (Korte Vijverberg 2)

2021: A sanctuary with a Vision (puilchri Studio The Hague

2020: TZT 047 duo exhibition (Bos Fine Art The Hague

2019: Dat Bolwerck, Zutphen Concrete (Zutphen)

Move d (Pulchri Studio The Hague

Essence 2019 (Foundation Vierplus eu.Zonnestraal Hilversum)

2018: essinsje | essence 2018 (Foundation four plus eu. Broerekerk Leeuwarden)

2018: Exhibition Untitled TZT The Hague (Bos Fine Art, The Hague)

2017: A Vision in Picture (solo exhibition Pulchri Studio, The Hague)

2017: 17 views on geometric art (Galerie T, Middelburg)

2016: Silver art in the Netherlands (Gemeentemuseum The Hague)

2015: Symposium Gorinchem

2015: A Hidden Silver Treasure (Museum Hannenahuis Harlingen)

2014: Wilhelminaring 1998-2014 (Coda Museum Apeldoorn)

2013: Museum Palthe Huis Oldenzaal

2012: Silver and Gold (CODA Museum Apledoorn)

2011: Salt in Silver (Zoutmuseum Delden)

2010: Constructivists Now (Kadmium Delft)

Assignments (selection):

1992, 1994, 1997: Voorschoten Emancipation Prize

2000: Wilhelminaring (biennial Dutch Achievement Award for Sculpture)

PUBLICATIONS (SELECTION):
2022: Typical Cees Post

2022: Article Kunstkrant May/June 2022

2007: A Graphic Concept, monograph

2017 A Vision in Pictures

2016: Silver art in the Netherlands

Nominations:

2002: Van Ommeren De Voogt prize