Curator text · Thom Oosterhof
Personal Trainer
Original text in English · Nederlandse vertaling →
Dutch artist Johnny Buivenga (b. 1992) finds himself at the precipice. Having spent years on the other side of the mirror, training and working as a psychologist and personal trainer, he made a pledge early on to help people meet societal expectations. Making them fitter, healthier, better versions of their original selves. But at what cost? His latest series challenges this very notion. Turning the profession that he dedicated his life to, into the subject of deep and critical introspection.
Across these paintings the ‘personal trainer’ recurs as a figure of ideological transmission. Dwelling at the point in which society's ideals pass into the body of the individual. The trainer adjusts, encourages, measures. And in doing so, carries the norm into the intimate territory of self-image. Buivenga knows this figure from the inside. He is both the instrument of the pressure and its subject, coaching others toward ideals he strains under himself.
The work ‘Giant Rat’ is a first attempt at reversing the observation. This time, it is the human form that finds himself on the ‘hamster wheel’, under nonchalant observation from the overlooking rat. In ‘Sunflower’, an athletic figure comes to the realization that his efforts have been in vain. That his self-gratification has not bought him beauty, instead all around him decay. ‘With Eyes Wide Open’ brings masculinity roaring to the fore. Several figures flex, contort and thrust in what can only be a complex expression of pent-up frustration and pressure. Through the work, the valve has been released.
Reuzerat
2026 · view work →
Sunflower
2025 · view work →
With Eyes Wide Open
2024 · view work →
Each work attempts to isolate a facet of that pressure. Be it in pursuit of the ideal body, the demand to perform, the cult of self-improvement or that thin membrane between caring for yourself and conforming to what is expected. Painted by someone who left a corporate career to make art full-time, the series asks a quiet question beneath its flexed surfaces. When we work on ourselves, whose work are we doing?
When we work on ourselves, whose work are we doing?