Jimmy Groen, Tim and Alex
About Jimmy
I’m Jimmy, a self-taught multimedia artist. I use my art to navigate the complex aftermath of seventeen years of institutional violence and identity destruction in the Dutch youth care system. * Denied professional mental health care, my practice is my sole space for survival. Since 1992, my work has exposed the erasure of children, unmasking 'charity' as a form of systemic betrayal.
This institutional betrayal is portrayed in series in collaboration with co- identities Tim and Alex, like Without Madonna, Tim draws back and They are everywhere but nobody knows who they are. In contrast, my series Queer Soft Rebels created between 2021 and 2023 celebrates the beautiful world of queer identity in childhood, a reality often forced behind masks of normality.
Alongside explorations of landscapes, physics, and the Arab world, my oeuvre includes over 360 works of trauma-based art. This body of work is officially recognized as digital cultural heritage and preserved by the National Library of the Netherlands (KB). After thirty years of creating from trauma and isolation, I have now pivoted toward my own fascinations, finally free from the weight of the past. My practice from 2026 is mainly the making of watercolor drawings and further collaboration with Tim and Alex.
* My childhood and later life is described in books, published by pseudonym Jasper Heijting
Public activities
2026 Pasaasj expo Schunck, Heerlen
2025 SoHo galleri, Västerås (S)
2025 Kunstmarkt, Halen (NL)
2024 Queer and Tim and Alex Anita Fleerackers Gallery, Gierle (B)
2023 Verbeelding Town Hall, Beek (NL)
2022 All‑In event Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht (NL)
2022 On the Edge duo exhibition with Jo Coort, Cultural Stage Lutherse Kerk, Maastricht (NL)
2021 Fantastike atelier Group exhibition, Maastricht (NL)
PUBLISEHED ZINES
Hidden pain 35 Works on Violence in the Dutch Youth Care System 2022
English, French, Dutch
Published books under the pseudonym Jasper Heijting
This book confronts the reader with the reality of growing up within a youth care system defined by deliberate detachment, forced isolation, dehumanization and systemic violence. It offers a profound and raw insight into how long-term gender-based violence in childhood shatters the development of gender, identity, sexuality, and relationships. Written as a courageous ego-document from the perspective of the child, the narrative traces the emergence of a dissociative identity amidst this trauma. This book serves as the foundational record for the pieces presented in the Trauma Art Archive on this website.
Language: Dutch
This book explores the haunting aftermath of a childhood spent within a violent institutional system built on erasure. For the author, the struggle did not end with adulthood; it evolved into a profound search for a stolen self amidst systemic gaslighting and open hostility by government and mental health entities. Offering a rare, intimate insight into living with a dissociative identity —particularly the dominance of child-identity parts—the narrative serves as a powerful metaphor for the fragmented mind.
Language: Dutch