‘A work is born from a kind of confused emotion. The work is an attempt to elucidate that emotion.’ Puvis de Cha-vannes
Marijke began her artistic career in The Netherlands, the land of her birth, as a professional dancer, choreogra-pher and teacher. After emigrating to Australia with her family and lecturing in ballet in Melbourne and Bris-bane she made a crossover after studying art and gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in sculpture at Griffith University. Upon graduating she was awarded the Karl and Gertrude Langer Award which resulted in a solo exhibition at the Brisbane Town Hall gallery.
Since then she has been exhibiting regularly with several solo exhibitions here and overseas, being a finalist in and winning several awards.
Being an immigrant, her art is often concerned with concepts such as Home, Place and Self-Identity.
More recent issues like the environment and how we fit within our environment and what can be done to create a better more liveable world have become a more prominent mindfulness in her practice.
Her latest artworks are also influenced by the recent period of isolation as a time of contemplating the future we thought we had and still have, the dreams we had and still have.
She tries to harmoniously merge message and aesthetics in her work. In addition to acrylic paint and recycled materials, text and texture play a crucial role in bringing this about.
She was winner of the Highly Commended Award at the Abstraction Exhibition 2021 at the Royal Queensland Art Society, finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award Brisbane in 2020 and 2019 as well as a final-ist in the Rotary Spectacular Brisbane in 2019 and 2018