Delicate, quiet lines, layers upon layers, and forms that slowly emerge through light and shadow. Jim Verburg works across painting, printmaking, and installation, creating works that invite us to experience the act of looking as a quiet passage of time.
Within each work, clarity and the unknown, geometric structure and ambiguity coexist, revealing different expressions depending on the viewer’s perspective and the time they spend with it. The delicate lines and subtle shifts cannot be fully captured through photographs or screens; they reveal themselves most fully when encountered in person, standing before the work and taking the time to look.
At Tokyo Gendai, where diverse forms of art come together, we invite you to step away from the everyday and spend a quiet moment with Jim Verburg’s work—taking the time to look, to feel, and to discover what reveals itself.
How would you describe your artistic practice to someone encountering your work for the first time?
I usually describe my work as quiet, nuanced, and (as someone once described it) deceptively minimal. Usually consisting of multiple layers, and although not “painting” in the traditional sense, the works are usually painted using the tools usually associated with printmaking.
Your work possesses a serene beauty that seems to materialize the very essence of “lingering light” or “shifting shadows,” masterfully utilizing simple materials like charcoal, graphite, and paint. When capturing these unseen, delicate nuances of light onto a surface, what kind of creative process or layering technique do you prioritize most?
Thank you for saying. I try to make compositions that have a certain amount of clarity and a certain amount of unknown. That the viewer can look at once and see one thing, and look at it from a different angle and see another. It’s a metaphor I quite like. How things can be different depending on perspective and approach. I’m also interested in how everything is nuanced and somewhere in-between this or that.
It’s difficult to say how things develop in the making of the work. I don’t feel inhibited by any specific material or method. I often work with someone who knows the tools of printmaking more than I do, together we explore a certain combination of materials or methods to get that mix of subtle geometry and spaces of obscurity or nothingness.
Despite your geometric compositions of lines and grids, your work evokes a profound sense of human intimacy and emotional resonance. Within this intersection of systematic structure and deep emotion, what are the moments or experiences that inspire your creativity the most?
Again – thank you for noticing that. Some of the work that I’ve loved the most have been these subtle experiences where the work reveals itself with time. Where the pieces give you just enough for your eye to grasp and a wash of unknown to get lost in. There’s something about sitting with a work – having it aid in some sort of meditation that is interesting to me. These works are always difficult to photograph. The camera always wants to grab hold of a line that is more subtle with the human eye. I like making work that is best viewed in person. With everything being more and more online and on our phones, it’s important to have moments and spaces away from that. That can be experienced apart from that. About 10 years ago now, I went to visit the Rothko Chapel in Houston. That was a profoundly moving experience for me, and definitely inspired what I want my work to do. I hope that when an artist makes work – whatever they might be feeling when making it, can come through in some way. I don’t know if this is always possible with art, but that’s my hope.
The most recent work I made was in response to Bill Jacobson’s work Song of Myself #1001 (also showing in the booth), I’ve had one of his books on my shelf since the early 2000s, its been lovely to meet him through preparing for the fair, and it was a fun experience to respond to an artist whose work I’ve known for so many years.
Your practice spans a broad range of mediums—from gallery solo exhibitions (such as at Zalucky Gallery in Toronto) to book design and site-specific installations. In your dialogue with the physical spaces where your work resides (including architecture and natural light), what kind of new artistic expansions or experiments have you been exploring recently?
Years ago I was asked to choreograph a short dance piece. I had not experience with dance, so it was a lovely challenge to figure out how to convey some of my interests in movement. I recently explored making a sequel to this work – responding to a beam of light in the rehearsal space I was working it. We’ll see what it becomes. I’m interested in creating more spaces for art, light and meditation – more chapel like environments where every work and the space are all subtle parts of the whole. My recent exhibition “The Day Takes Form” at Zalcuky in Toronto was like this.
I would love to put some sort of minimal structure on land somewhere. Where light, space and art combine. There are some spaces in Japan that I’m excited to see.
Tokyo Gendai is a global art fair where a diverse range of art, people, and light intersect. For the Japanese audience encountering your work within this dynamic setting, what kind of experience do you hope to offer, and what message would you like to share with them?
I know what I do isn’t for everyone, but for the people who are interested – I hope to offer some sort of pause, some sort to moment to reflect. Art fair’s can sometimes be an overload for the senses. Hopefully my work could provide another type of moment.
Thank you very much! We look forward to seeing your work in September.
Encounter Time Carved in Stone — Experience Junichi Mori’s Sculptures at Tokyo Gendai.
Dates:
11-13 September 2026 (Fri-Sun) *Vernissage: 10 September (Thu)
Venue:
Pacifico Yokohama
Booth:
Mizuma Art Gallery
Ticket Purchase:
Jim Verburg is a Dutch / Canadian artist currently based in Toronto
Notable projects by include Within and Without, a two-part exhibition at Galerie Nicolas Robert (Montréal) and Zalucky Contemporary (Toronto, 2022); Shape and Light #1 for Toronto Dance Theatre (2016); The shape this takes to get to that, a public art commission for the City of Ottawa (2019); and One and Two at Galerie B-312 for Mois de la Photo Montréal (2011), which was a recipient of the Dazibao Prize.
He has participated in group exhibitions at The Power Plant (Toronto), Luciana Caravello (Rio de Janeiro), Access Gallery (Vancouver), Inman Gallery (Houston), Paul Kuhn Gallery (Calgary), and Cydonia Gallery (Dallas). Art fair presentations include Art Brussels (2024 and 2025), Expo Chicago (2018), Untitled Miami (2016, 2018), and featured solo projects at VOLTA NY (widmertheodoridis Zurich, 2015), and at the Texas Contemporary Art Fair (2015).
Verburg’s film For a Relationship won Best Canadian Short Film at Inside Out (2008) and was nominated for the Iris Prize (UK). His publications include O/ Divided/Defined (shortlisted for Best Printed Publication, Gala des Arts Visuels, 2014) and A New Relationship Between Reflective Sides (launched at MoMA PS1, 2015). His work appears in numerous private and corporate collections in Canada, the USA and Europe, including a recent commission for the Panoptès Collection in Brussels (2025).
He will have a solo show at Curatorial Gallery in London in 2027.
