Danika Kersten

Illustration

About

Hi! My name is Danika, and I’m a Dutch story artist. My spectrum of interests is quite broad when it comes to art (and most other things, to be fair), but since graduating from KASK in Ghent in 2018, I’ve started to more or less specialize in a few themes and forms of illustration.

I will highlight my a few of the main ones below – each of which I would never have expected to find myself focussing on ten years ago!

Graphic Art

At art school I studied Graphic Design, which sporadically included classes for graphic printing techniques. Despite wanting to, I hardly ever engaged with graphics at all. In my very last year I finally decided to carve and print woodcuts for my Master’s project: a comic, made up of fifty-two small woodcuts. And since then I’ve gradually been diving deeper into graphic art..

Comics

I’ve always loved comics – although being able to both read the text and look at the pictures, not just one or the other, took me a bit – but never considered making them until quite late. Once I started, however, I couldn’t stop.

My stories tend to be quiet and introspective: I reflect on what makes everyday and domestic life special, or give the it a slightly surreal twist.

Landscapes

It feels like for most of my life I disliked drawing anything other than solitary trees when it came to landscapes, so it would come as a shock to my younger self that landscape drawing has stealthily claimed a special place in my heart. I discovered my love for this when I got multiple live drawing assignments in art school every year. As a result I filled many sketchbooks throughout my school career. These sketchbooks lead to my first exhibition at World of KINA in Ghent.

Recent Commissions

Should you be interested in commissioning me, or if you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at danikakersten@gmail.com!

and News

In April and May 2025, GAA will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary with an exhibition in the St. Laurentiuskerk, or “Grote Kerk” in Alkmaar. I’m one of 50 artists who have made a print for this exhibition.

In March 2023 I started working as admin at the local graphic studio, Grafisch Atelier Alkmaar. Meaning I now have a very diverse, very artistic job and am surrounded by graphic art and artists every week!

Soon after I came back from Japan, Flip Schultz interviewed me for his podcast, Vakwerk. The episode released on 14 December 2022. Listen to it here!

From 4 September until 8 October 2022 I followed a Mokuhanga (Japanese woodcarving and printing) at the Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory in Kawaguchiko, Japan. After a two and a half year delay, I am thrilled that I was finally able to do this! Check out the works that I’ve made in the graphics gallery!

On Sunday 27 March 2022 my Koppermaandag print has been presented at the Graphic Studio in Alkmaar. You can see it in my graphics gallery. Should you want to see previous Koppermaandag prints, you can find those (alongside mine) on the Koppermaandagprent page of the Grafisch Atelier Alkmaar website