Claudy Jongstra’s Counter Currents
In Counter Currents, Claudy Jongstra invites us into a space where art breathes with the pulse of the natural world. Opening at et galerie in La Jolla, California, this quietly powerful exhibition unfolds as a series of large-scale textile works that shimmer with the textures, colours, and narratives of a landscape deeply cared for and deliberately cultivated.
For over three decades, Jongstra has built her practice on a foundation of material intimacy and environmental reciprocity. From her biodynamic farm in Friesland, The Netherlands, she tends a flock of indigenous Drenthe Heath sheep and cultivates heirloom dye plants, ensuring that the fibres and pigments used in her work are not merely sustainably sourced, but part of a regenerative cycle.
Claudy Jongstra, Early Blossom, 2025 (Detail). Drenthe Heath wool, organic silk, and hand-spun yarns. Naturally dyed with walnut, madder root, weld.
Each piece begins with the landscape: wool carded from her sheep, dye extracted from madder roots or weld blossoms, all transformed through traditional felting and dyeing techniques revived and reimagined for a contemporary context. The works in Counter Currents speak softly, yet insistently, to the urgent questions of our time.
Claudy Jongstra, Nature’s Wisdom 3/6 (Detail), 2025. Drenthe Heath wool, organic Spanish Merino wool. Naturally dyed with Burgundian Black, walnut, tagetes, madder root, cochinille, woad.
Through their tactile presence – thick layers of felted wool, saturated with the deep reds, ochres, and indigos of natural dyes – they invite viewers to observe closely and connect with the rhythms of the natural world. Jongstra’s approach is not to lecture or confront, but to cultivate an experience of wonder and belonging, a reconnection with materials and processes that have too often been severed from modern life.
Inside et galerie, La Jolla, California.
Counter Currents also happens to be the inaugural exhibition for et galerie, founded alongside the award-winning architectural practice Luce et studio and led by Jennifer Luce. Located within their La Jolla studio, et galerie functions as a showcase for objects, furniture, and works that blur the lines between craft, design, and creative expression. Jongstra’s connection with Luce et studio runs deeper than this exhibition alone. Their collaboration began with the celebrated transformation of the Mingei International Museum in 2021, where Luce and Jongstra shared a commitment to handcraft and artistry. This shared ethos is embedded in the very fabric of Counter Currents, where every fibre and hue carries a story of ecological care and a quiet insistence that art, architecture, and material culture can be reimagined as spaces of resistance and renewal.
Claudy Jongstra, The Natural Way, 2025. Drenthe Heath wool, organic silk. Naturally dyed with walnut, onion skin, woad.
“You cannot truly understand nature without becoming part of it,” Jongstra reflects. This philosophy infuses every fibre of her work, from the soft, absorptive felted surfaces that alter the acoustics of a space to the lush palette of colours drawn from ancient dyer crops. Through Counter Currents, Jongstra cultivates a different way of being – one that recognises the profound interdependence of art, material, and landscape, and invites us to do the same.
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Further Information:
Counter Currents is on show now at et galerie, La Jolla, California.
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Image Credits:
LEAD: Claudy Jongstra, Tangible Transformation 4/4, 2023. Drenthe Heath wool, organic silk. Naturally dyed with coreopsis, nettle, woad, weld, madder root, walnut, and Burgundian Black.
All other images as credited in photo captions.