Lily van der Stokker lives and works between Amsterdam and New York. Since the late 1980s, she has been creating monumental wall paintings and installations composed of decorative ornamentation, furniture, everyday objects and texts. Van der Stokker’s visual language of flowers, looping lines, clouds and curlicues in bold, bright colors, raises questions about what we regard as typically feminine. Her work can be placed in the tradition of feminist art, which does not conform to prevailing standards of good taste. As such, she often exploits concepts that are ‘banned’ from contemporary art, such as the frivolous and decorative.
Most recently, she has had major insitutional solo exhibitions in Frac Normandie (2024), Highline New York (2023), CODA Museum (2023), Camden Art Centre (2022), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst (2019), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2018), Hammer Museum (2015), and The New Museum (2014).
Her work is held in public collections such as Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum, Bonnefantenmuseum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Jumex Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Museum Arnhem, Museum Gouda, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Worchester Art Museum, FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, FRAC Bourgogne, Musee des Beaux Arts de Nancy, and FRAC Poitou-Charentes.