Manifest

Diversity as a Goal

The work of a transformation studio artist is marked by a deliberate choice for diversity. Each artwork is an opportunity to explore new paths. Striving for personal growth is essential: learning and experimenting lie at the heart of the process. The artist embraces the challenge of creating, evolving, and continually reinventing themselves.

Organic Transformation

Artworks are never truly finished unless they are no longer in the possession of the artist. Each piece in the oeuvre can be reworked, connected to other works, or transformed into something entirely new. These interactions generate unexpected meanings and ideas. Chance, experience, and the natural course of events guide the process organically. Traces of transformation—whether temporary or enduring—can grow into new artworks, serving as tangible witnesses to evolution.

The Tools of Transformation

Transformation is impossible without tools. Everything that drives change is an instrument: the artist, the audience, other organisms, natural forces, chemical reactions, technology. The entire universe is a reservoir of possibilities. The artist is both creator and mediator, in constant dialogue with these tools and processes.

A Manifesto of Movement

Transformation studio artistry is an ongoing journey, not a destination. It is an ode to change, a celebration of the undefined, and an invitation to keep transforming.

This means his art is not bound to a single medium: a concept may just as well take shape as a painting, an installation, or a digital work. His focus on the primacy of the idea over the form reflects a postmodern attitude that broke away from modernist conventions. Where modernist artists often aimed for a fixed style or aesthetic perfection, Hendrickx embraces diversity and content. He positions himself within a postmodern or late-modern framework — his practice is pluralistic and idea-driven, rather than defined by form or medium.

Process Art: Transformation, Time, and Open-Endedness

Change is central to Hendrickx’s oeuvre. In his manifesto, he writes that no work is ever truly “finished” as long as it remains in his possession. Any piece may be reworked, combined, or transformed into something new. This open attitude toward the artwork as a continuous process connects with the principles of late-20th-century process art. In process art, the act of making became integral to the artwork itself — with works often being variable, temporary, or ephemeral.

Like process artists such as Robert Morris and Eva Hesse, Hendrickx embraces chance and unpredictability as creative forces. His manifesto speaks of “coincidence, experience, and the natural course of events” guiding the process, echoing the idea that abandoning a predetermined outcome can lead to new and unexpected forms. In this, he implicitly rejects the notion of the artwork as a static, immutable object. His works are moments within an ongoing transformation rather than final endpoints.

As he puts it himself: his artistic practice is “a continuous journey, not a destination... an ode to change.” Time becomes a fundamental element of the work: each phase, each trace of transformation can stand alone as art — tangible witnesses of evolution. This process-driven character places Hendrickx within a lineage of artists who have made time and change core subjects of their work — from Fluxus happenings and land art to contemporary installations that unfold or decay in real time.

Plurality and Hybrid Practice in Contemporary Art

Hendrickx explicitly refers to a “deliberate choice for variety” as a hallmark of his transformation studio. This idea of pluralism aligns with contemporary artistic practice, where experimentation and the crossing of disciplinary boundaries are central. Artists today often combine traditional techniques with modern media — painting, installation, digital technologies, recycled materials, and even living organisms appear side by side.

Hendrickx’s work moves fluidly between painting, sculpture, and digital projects, depending on what the concept requires. This interdisciplinary approach places him among a wide range of contemporary artists who cannot be categorized under a single label but who use hybrid forms to communicate ideas. His manifesto also states that anything capable of triggering transformation may serve as an instrument — the artist himself, the viewer, other organisms, natural forces, chemical reactions, or technology.

In this, his work resonates with interactive and participatory trends in contemporary art: akin to conceptual works that involve the audience in execution, or media art that uses technology as a creative tool. The result is a practice deeply rooted in the present: like many contemporary artists, Hendrickx responds directly to the world around him, deploying any material — from paint to algorithm — to give shape to transformation. His emphasis on meaning and process over appearance reflects a broader shift in 21st-century art, where content often outweighs form.

Relationship to Reality and Documentation

Rather than traditionally representing reality, Hendrickx chooses to incorporate real-world forces directly into his work. His approach balances subjectivity and objectivity: on the one hand, artistic intuition and decision-making shape the process; on the other, external influences — such as physics, chemistry, or chance — are allowed to steer the work. He acts as both creator and observer of transformation — a mediator engaging in dialogue with matter and circumstance.

Because many of his works are in flux or temporary, documentation becomes essential. Photographing or filming the stages of transformation functions much like the documentation strategies in conceptual art, where the idea persists through text or image even if the object itself disappears. Hendrickx’s website functions as such an evolving archive: earlier works are revisited with new images or linked to later projects, forming a “web of transformations.” This mode of presentation underscores again his affinity with practices that prioritize process and concept over the fixed art object.

A Contemporary Artist of Transformation

Based on his manifesto and working methods, Niko Hendrickx can be situated within the field of contemporary conceptual and process-based art. His practice shares the idea-centered logic of conceptualism, the open-ended nature of process art, and the hybrid, postmodern sensibility typical of 21st-century artists.

Yet he brings his own distinctive approach: drawing from diverse movements — from minimalist clarity to the organic experimentation of arte povera — he weaves these influences into a personal “transformation studio.” Just as Sol LeWitt once described a concept as a machine that makes the art, Hendrickx treats each idea as a guiding thread, free from stylistic restriction. Like Eva Hesse, he embraces the perishability and regeneration of material. And like many contemporary artists, he explores the dynamic between humanity, nature, and technology to generate new experiences.

In summary: Hendrickx’s oeuvre exists at the intersection of conceptual and process art, within a pluralistic, postmodern framework. His practice offers an intelligent and conscious reflection on what art can be when it refuses to remain fixed — a continuous dialogue between idea and form, between the artist, his tools, and the world he inhabits.