Daily Inspiration: Meet Micky Hoogendijk

Today we’d like to introduce you to Micky Hoogendijk.

Micky, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My creative journey has never followed a straight line. I began my career as an actress, both in the Netherlands and later in Los Angeles, where I lived for many years. While acting gave me a deep understanding of storytelling and human emotion, life eventually led me in a different direction.

After the loss of my mother in 2009, who had given me a camera shortly before she passed away, photography became a way of making sense of grief. Without any formal training, I began creating portraits and conceptual work, discovering that the camera allowed me to express what words could not.

Los Angeles became the place where my life as a visual artist truly began. In September 2012, I presented my work at Art Platform Los Angeles, my first major art fair. That moment marked the beginning of a new chapter and gave me the confidence to fully embrace my identity as an artist.

From photography, my practice naturally evolved into sculpture. I became fascinated by the human figure, connection, vulnerability and resilience. Today I work across bronze, glass, alabaster, painting and photography, with each medium exploring the same central themes from a different perspective. My series The Ones has become my signature body of work and can now be found in private and public collections around the world.

In 2022 I published my memoir, The Art of Letting Go, a deeply personal reflection on loss, resilience and transformation. Writing the book made me realize that my art and my life have always been telling the same story: that even our most difficult experiences can become the foundation for something meaningful and beautiful.

Today I live and work in Huize Zonnewijzer, a historic artist’s house in Amsterdam that has become both my home and studio. It is a place where I create, welcome collectors, host conversations about art and continue exploring what it means to be human. Looking back, I can see that every unexpected turn in my journey has ultimately led me exactly where I was meant to be.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not at all. Looking back, I think every meaningful chapter of my life began with something falling apart.

I’ve experienced profound personal loss, the end of relationships, career changes, financial uncertainty, and the challenge of starting over more than once. Reinventing yourself sounds inspiring when you tell the story afterwards, but living through it is often lonely and full of doubt. There were many moments when I had no certainty that the path I had chosen would work.

Starting a career as a visual artist in my forties, without a formal art education, meant I had to earn trust one step at a time. Every exhibition, every collector, and every opportunity had to be built from the ground up. There was no blueprint.

At the same time, those struggles became my greatest teachers. They taught me resilience, patience, and the importance of creating from a place of authenticity rather than expectation. I don’t make art despite the difficult moments in my life; I make art because of them.

Today I see those setbacks differently. They weren’t interruptions to my journey; they were the journey. They shaped both the artist and the person I have become.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I create sculptures, paintings and photography that explore what it means to be human. Regardless of the medium, my work revolves around the same themes: connection, vulnerability, resilience and transformation. I am less interested in how we appear on the outside than in what we carry within us.

Over the years, I have become best known for my bronze sculpture series The Ones. Although the figures are minimal and anonymous, people often recognise themselves, their relationships or a particular moment in their lives within them. I believe that when a work of art becomes too literal, it leaves little room for the viewer. I try to create just enough space for people to complete the story themselves.

What makes my work different is that it doesn’t begin with an aesthetic idea but with a deeply personal experience or question. Every sculpture, painting or photograph grows out of something I have lived, questioned or transformed. My work is not about creating objects; it is about creating moments of recognition.

What I am most proud of is that people often tell me my work has stayed with them long after they first encountered it. Collectors have shared stories of finding comfort during grief, rediscovering hope after difficult periods, or simply feeling seen. For me, there is no greater compliment than knowing a work has become part of someone’s life.

Ultimately, I hope my work reminds people that even in our most fragile moments, we remain connected to ourselves, to each other, and to the possibility of new beginnings.

How do you think about luck?
People often say I’ve been lucky, but when I look back, I see something different. Some of the moments that appeared to be the worst luck of my life eventually became the turning points that shaped everything that followed.

Losing my mother was devastating. Shortly before she passed away, she gave me a camera. At the time, I could never have imagined that this simple gift would become the beginning of my career as a visual artist. What felt like profound loss slowly transformed into purpose.

The same has been true throughout my life. Opportunities have certainly come my way, but they only mattered because I was willing to take risks, start over, and keep creating, even when there were no guarantees. I don’t think luck is something that simply happens to you. I think it’s what appears when preparation, perseverance, and openness meet the unexpected.

I’ve also learned not to judge events too quickly. What feels like bad luck today may reveal itself years later as the very thing that set you on the path you were meant to take.

If there’s one thing I believe, it’s that life is less about controlling what happens to us and more about what we choose to create from it. That’s where the real magic begins.

Pricing:

• Fine art photography (limited editions) starts at $5000 – $22.000
• Bronze sculptures (limited editions): around $20.000
• Glass sculptures (limited editions): starts at $15.000
• Paintings: $8000 – $25.000
• Unique alabaster sculptures: $20.000

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mickyhoogendijk.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickyhoogendijk/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mickyhoogendijk
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micky-hoogendijk-aa887050/
• Twitter: https://x.com/HoogendijkMicky

Image Credits
black and white photo: Rik van De Wiel www.instagram.com/rikvandewielfotografie
color photo: Frank Ruiter https://www.instagram.com/frankruiterphotographer/?hl=en