Graduates of the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Job Smeets (b.1970, Belgium) and Nynke Tynagel (b. 1977, the Netherlands), who both live as well as work together, form Studio Job.
Having met in 1996 in Eindhoven - she beginning her studies in graphic design and he having just graduated in three-dimensional design Mr. Smeets proceeded to open Studio Job in 1998 in Antwerp, joined by Ms. Tynagel in 2000, following her graduation.
From the beginning, their collaboration resulted in highly expressive, usually one-off or limited-edition artesian works, often cast in bronze or, later, finely constructed in laser-cut inlaid woods.
Employing iconographic, pan-historic imagery which can be in the same moment both heraldic as well as cartoon-like, the results are consistently monumental and yet somehow primitive, and generally read neo-baroque, clearly fantasist, and certainly more mannerist than modernist.
Projecting a strong narrative quality, suggesting often a heroic battle between good and evil, their gorgeous collections seem born more from a medieval, guild-like process than an industrial approach.
Although, by definition, their work has primarily been geared to collectors and museums, Studio Job has collaborated successfully with various like-minded industrial manufactories, including Swarovski, Austria, and Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum and Moooi, the Netherlands.
Their work has been shown internationally in numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Dutch Textile Museum, Tilburg, and the Groninger Museum, Groningen.
BIO AND CV