A Conversation with Painting Tutor Margo Slomp

FMI Graduation Show 2026 Interview Series

By Olivia Niuman

For this installment of the interview feature series, I spoke to Margo Slomp, a core tutor of the Painting department. We discussed how this year’s cohort of graduating students – of which I am also a part of –  has an especially collaborative spirit despite a wide range of different artistic processes and material engagement.

Many of this year's students in particular are engaging specifically with material as one of the core elements of their practice: “some making their own material, or giving the material quite a prominent place, sometimes physically, or conceptually,” Margo shared. 

She mentioned as an example Koen Kievits, “who has a very conceptual approach to the notion that the artwork is also an object that exists out of material, but that you can also sort of deny that material or take it away, and that an image can be taken away, so that it becomes the material again. That's in essence a very conceptual approach, but he also makes it a very physical approach.” 

She also noted that some other students — Simon Scharinger, Lambertine van Veldhuizen, and Arjun Bandhari — have been making their own material, including acrylic or oil paint, painting grounds, oil pastels and oil paint sticks. 

While the program is organized around the notion of painting, that does not necessarily mean that every student approaches the medium in the same way, or that they use paint at all. Margo shared that the program is intended for artists who see painting as a starting point, but they do not necessarily have to be making paintings. Students might have painting as an important reference point or are trying to redefine their relationship with the medium. 

Sam Werkhoven, for example, entered the program with a strong painterly focus and began making charcoal drawings halfway through his first year, which he has continued working with and will present at the graduation show. George Kratochvil, on the other hand, entered the program with a clear intention of making a series of graphite drawings, which he has steadily continued with throughout the course of the program. 

We also discussed notions of process and the “artistic unit” question that I have been asking the students and tutors, and how artists have different ways of conceptualizing and presenting their processes. 

Margo said it was difficult to speak to each artist’s individual unit, as it is not always explicitly articulated as such by the artist. For a painting or painting-adjacent practice, it also may be less apparent from the work as presented what kind of mechanisms or frameworks organize the process, because often what is shown is the result or a residue of the process. “The question is always how much of that process do you want to share, can you share, is it palpable or not, is that even relevant, or is it something that really belongs to the studio, and I think painters have different answers to that.”

I asked Margo what she thought her “unit” might be as a teacher, or in other words, a fundamental approach that she likes to take with her students. She answered: “I think it is very much my job to really listen to what is happening, and try to have this kind of, let's say, resonant relationship, or try to think with or move with students.” 

“Sometimes moving with is a little bit moving against, like showing alternatives, really questioning something, but it's never to say I'm questioning this because I think you're wrong, or you can't think this, but getting the perspective more clear for a student themselves.” 

When I asked Margo what conceptual or thematic similarities she sees between students, she said that it was a difficult question to answer because each student has, at this point, quite a defined trajectory. What she did note, however, was that this group seems to have a very collaborative and supportive spirit. “I saw a lot of critical support of each other’s processes; the group as a whole dares to ask each other questions, but also gives a good space for others to respond in it.” 

Margo also referenced other collaborative projects that many of the painting students had worked on together over the past two years, including an exhibition at SIGN last year, a graduation show preview dinner & exhibition this past April, and most recently the RE:Arrange exhibition series at RE:Search:Gallery. She was impressed by “the fact that your works really can sort of be on their own and each have a very a strong presence, but that you as a group also manage to come up with solutions for how to let these works really be in a conversation with each other, and how you dare to do that.” 

Each of those three projects presented a different manifestation of how the painting students’ work could function together; this visual and conceptual relationship will be extended to work from the students of the Frank Mohr Institute as a whole at the graduation show at the A-Kerk this June. 

The Painting students’ graduation work, along with the other three departments at the Frank Mohr Institute, will be on view at the A-Kerk in Groningen from 25-28 June, 2026. For more interviews, information, and details about the students and their graduation work, keep an eye on the event page on our website and follow us on Instagram.