Jakko Woudenberg

“I don't move from A to B. I begin with an image or a question that catches my interest. I find the meaning while making.”

Artist Statement

I don’t make floors. I make monuments in wood — each built for a single place, and never made again. Every piece is cut and placed by hand, over months and sometimes years. It is not made to decorate a room, but to outlast it.

Artist Bio

Jakko Woudenberg is a Dutch master parquet craftsman and monumental artist, based in Schagen, the Netherlands, and a member of the Dutch Guild of Parquet Layers.

For decades he practised parquet as a trade. Since 2019 he has been on a mission to pull it into the art world — not because it sounds good, but because he believes an art form lies hidden inside the craft. INSSAEI and The Night Watch in Wood are his proof: the latter a monumental reconstruction of Rembrandt’s masterpiece built from 195,000 hand-cut wooden pixels across 52 species of wood, including the sections cut away from the original in 1715.

His work has been exhibited internationally, from Amsterdam to Orlando, and recognised with the Vakwerk Award, the WFB Design Award and the CFJ Award. He works only on commission, each piece conceived for a specific site and purpose.

He believes craft dies when it is kept to yourself. Through United Wood Floor Layers — Pay It Forward, he shares his knowledge freely: with the next generation, with colleagues, with anyone willing to learn.