Lennard Kok

As Joachim has shared a studio with friend, illustrator and artist Lennard Kok in Utrecht for a few years, we’ve been able to observe his working process up close. Lennard is a person of quiet concentration, making small decisions that accumulate into his signature style, along with his recurring experiments whenever he’s not occupied with larger assignments. We’ve known him for years, even before sharing a studio, and our first collaboration, “Fallen Bird,” dates back to 2017, when we turned one of his drawings into a porcelain sculpture. Since then, he has moved at his own pace. Never stepping into the limelight, just steady, careful steps that have carried his work into the world.

Bringing Lennard together with de dam foundation felt natural from the start. Their languages meet in the same place: clear lines, shared references, similar sources of inspiration. From that first meeting eventually came “De Polder”: a trench coat and a cap with Lennard’s hand-drawn work on the inside of the label. For Lennard, the project felt close to home. He grew up in a polder and knows its unusual mix of calm and pressure. Leaving it to live in Utrecht, and now outside the city, has not erased it.

It felt like the right moment to sit with him again. To talk about the years between our collaborations. To look at “De Polder” and the fit he found in it. To explore how the landscape that shaped him still shows up in the work he makes today.

Here are some of the things we talked about >

Our previous project together, the porcelain “Fallen Bird” figurine, dates back to 2017. That was a different time for both of us. Do you ever reflect on where you stand in your career?

Yes, I think about it constantly.

Can you compare today to back then?

Yes. I was thinking about life just yesterday. I said recently: the age I am now is the age I always looked forward to being when I was younger. I really appreciate being able to do things I enjoy, to buy things I like. Realizing that I’m here now gives me a sense of calm. In 2017, I had graduated five years earlier, so I was still at the start of my working life.

You were still teaching back then too, right? Which you continued quite a few years after. Looking at it from my perspective, you’ve maintained a certain flow throughout almost your entire career, even then.

Yes, I think it helped that I’ve always been open to different projects and looked beyond just paper. Since then, I’ve done one or two projects a year that had nothing to do with paper: a book, a curtain, a wine glass. Some things come naturally, others I initiate myself.

Is that strategy?

More a feeling. I enjoy commercial work, and structure suits me. But I also miss freedom. I don’t want to be completely autonomous, so I look for that combination. The lack of that mix during the pandemic made clear how important it is to be with others. Illustrating can be lonely. Around 2017, I still did many exhibitions and activations. I do that less now. And yet it’s so fertile: celebrating that something exists. I need to seek that out more.

One of your first global clients, The New York Times, came to you organically.

Yes. My zine The Witch Has a System with Draw Down Books (2015) was at Printed Matter. And my Apartamento Magazine coloring book (2017) got broad attention. I’ve always been selective about what I show on social media, for instance. I show the work I want to receive back. So one day, an art director from The New York Times contacted me, and soon after I did my first editorial illustrations.

And eventually more global clients followed.

Yes. I’m guessing that art directors look at each other. If your zine is at Printed Matter or you worked with Apartamento Magazine, it can be a checkmark. My agent also helped a lot. I had a few big clients in recent years for which I’ve worked repeatedly.

Hugo & Marie was more or less your only choice for representation, right?

Yes. They were always at the top of my list. Mario [Hugo] approached me, and it clicked immediately with the team. I rarely doubt choices anyway. If something doesn’t happen, I’m okay with that. But this particular choice was a no-brainer. Seeing how well it worked for Merijn Hos, who was already with them and someone I admired, made me realize I wanted to make that step at some point in my own career.

What’s their role in your development?

Taking care of business matters. Time to think about how I present myself externally. Feedback, analyses of the creative world. Two big reviews a year. They’re also the closest thing to colleagues for me.

A lot of your corporate work you did in recent years is internal, and therefore invisible.

Because I don’t have to show internal work to the world, it still feels very free. It has to be beautiful within constraints, but I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. That often hinders my own work. In these corporate assignments, I produce things in a day that would take so much longer on my own. Constraints work very well for me.

The world has changed quite a lot as well over the last years. How do you see the much-discussed influence of AI?

AI forces me to keep making unique things. To differentiate myself from things that “work.” For example, this project of ours, or an upcoming series of ceramic plates with Suzan Becking. Sometimes moving from lines to shapes, because that has a more complex dynamic. Honestly, I don’t feel anxious about it. Five years ago, all illustrators were told they had to learn animation. Now that doesn’t seem the case anymore. I may respond slowly to trends, but because of that I never feel pressured either. Focusing on myself is my goal, always. I trust it will work out that way.

Speaking of our project “De Polder” — the jacket and cap, with your hand-drawn labels, are also tangible.

Yes, making something tangible interests me: fabric, translucency, scale. Building something. I enjoy making something together with John and you. It gives me energy. It forms a mirror for my practice. Even when we were in the studio and John spoke humbly while we were super enthusiastic, I recognized that in myself. You see how others wrestle with their own critical eye.

How did you come to know de dam foundation?

I guess via Another Something. I met John in the first meeting we had for this project. But I felt an immediate connection. His references are close to my interests: simplicity, the Netherlands, Rietveld, architecture.

And you’re a fashion lover.

Yes, definitely. And now there’s a bit more budget to spend. I really enjoy beautiful clothing — not seeing it only as functional. A jacket as a work of art. That’s a nice thing about getting older: I’m freer in what I allow myself. I love dressing in a certain way, and today I have space to choose.

I also realized only during the process that you literally grew up in a polder, in Lelystad.

I mentioned that in the Apartamento interview: Lelystad was really built from nothing. And the aesthetics of the time it was built — the 1970s style — is still what I find most beautiful. I have a sort of love for that distinctiveness. Also, for example, the old hall of pop venue Tivoli in Utrecht, with its cement tiles and stones combined with wood. It makes me very happy, though that doesn’t apply to most people from Lelystad. Maybe it touches me because it carries the sentiment of my youth.

Also the long views you get growing up in Lelystad — or in any polder, probably — I have a lot of love for. Cycling through a polder makes me happy. We lived in the suburbs, and my friends too, so cycling was normal: long stretches against the wind across flat land. When you do, everything you see makes sense. Everything is carefully constructed. For example, you can’t take your driving test in Lelystad — or even lessons, if I’m not mistaken — because it’s so built around cars, not representative of more challenging driving conditions. Traffic lights are optimized, everyone can merge easily. It’s a system designed to control things. Almost everything is predictable.

What’s also fascinating about Lelystad is that the “project” started to decay fairly quickly [read Lelystad by Joris van Casteren for context]. The moment someone thinks they can fully control everything, brings in young families, and lets new ways of thinking run free, it quickly becomes a messy place with all kinds of undesirable behavior, despite all the planning. That’s maybe a good metaphor for what we want to do with this project. A polder is impressive, but also terrible.

Yes, there’s an edge to a polder.

We of course know your deep love for Dick Bruna. But that clear, sharp line is also just the polder in you, which has taken deep root.

Yes, I can imagine that. Especially the thoughtfulness, the lack of romance, the simplification of everything. It’s also the most Dutch thing I can think of. It expresses itself without any frills. That also applies to me in many ways.

It’s also totally constraining, a sort of straitjacket. And at the same time, it has given you clear frameworks where you can experiment fully. Or critically observe the world, but still within limits.

Yes, I see a parallel in my own work. When I work autonomously, I can think of a million ways of doing things, but eventually it doesn’t make my work better or I get stuck in the process. Mostly it doesn’t. I need to figure things out within the constraint of my mind, and fail many times, for it to eventually be right. That’s Lelystad too: you can want to plan and control everything, but in the end, it will go wrong — and that’s the true nature of the place.

So it really doesn’t matter whether you plan it meticulously or let it go. Humanity will always mess things up at some point, and that’s where the truth lies.

Yes, that’s a beautiful law of being human. In the end, it will crash or fail in some way or form, and I also see that in my work. That’s why this collaboration with de dam foundation fits so perfectly: the polder is a striking metaphor for the modern human condition.

Keep track of Lennard Kok’s work here >