The Life and Training of Philip Akkerman

Philip Akkerman was born in 1957 in Vaassen, NL. While his contemporaries were often preoccupied with the shifting tides of conceptual art, Akkerman made a decisive choice at the age of 18 to pursue a career in painting. This was not a pursuit of trends, but a commitment to a specific, disciplined craft. He sought out formal training to ground this ambition, studying at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and later at Ateliers ’63 in Haarlem. His education focused on the technical rigors of the medium rather than the theoretical abstractions that dominated much of the era's discourse.

His training provided the foundation for a career defined by an obsessive, almost methodical dedication to his chosen subject. Rather than drifting between various genres, Akkerman focused his energy on the mechanics of representation. He resisted the urge to follow the prevailing academic fashions of his time, opting instead to master the traditional tools of the painter. This decision to prioritize technique over conceptual novelty shaped the trajectory of his entire career, turning his practice into a rigorous investigation of the act of seeing and the physical reality of paint on a surface.

A Decades-Long Project of Self-Portraiture

Akkerman’s career is defined by a singular, obsessive focus. Since 1981, he has worked exclusively on self-portraiture, turning his own likeness into a continuous field of investigation. This was not a temporary phase but a methodical commitment to the subject. By December 1991, his output had already reached 495 painted self-portraits. He expanded his practice in 1984 by incorporating drawn self-portraits into his repertoire, a move that added another layer of complexity to his ongoing study of the self.

The scale of this project is difficult to grasp without looking at the sheer volume of work produced. What began as a focused inquiry has grown into a massive body of work, with over ten thousand self-portraits completed to date. This repetition is not a lack of imagination; it is a deliberate attempt to see how many versions of himself are possible. He uses the mirror as a tool to test the limits of the genre, moving past the simple reflection to focus on the mechanics of painting itself.

Technique and Artistic Style

Akkerman’s approach is defined by a rigorous, almost obsessive commitment to the mechanics of painting. He relies on the traditional Old Master technique of grisaille underpainting to establish form before applying layers of color. His toolkit is broad and functional, utilizing tempera, oil paint, gouache, watercolor, and drawing to achieve specific effects. This technical versatility allows him to move beyond mere representation. He treats the medium as a site of investigation rather than a tool for simple imitation.

His stylistic range is intentionally expansive, refusing to settle into a single mode of expression. He moves fluidly between hyperrealism and total abstraction, often within the same decades-long project. One work might employ the precision of realism, while another adopts the fractured geometry of Cubism or the distorted energy of expressionism. This refusal to adhere to one aesthetic makes his body of work a study in the limits of the self-portrait genre. He uses the constraints of his chosen subject to test how much a likeness can be altered before it ceases to be a portrait.

• No.88 (2016)

Where to See His Works Today

Akkerman’s presence in major institutional collections confirms the weight of his lifelong investigation into the self. His works are held within the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, placing his repetitive, methodical study of identity alongside the foundational pillars of Dutch art history. To see his output is to witness a singular, obsessive trajectory that refuses to deviate from its subject.

The reach of his oeuvre extends into several other significant repositories. The Kunstmuseum Den Haag maintains his works, and the Teylers Museum in Haarlem also holds pieces from his extensive series. These collections house the results of a practice that has moved from simple observation toward a complex, technical interrogation of the medium itself. His work is not merely a collection of likenesses; it is a physical record of a painter's persistence.

• No.88 (2016)