Like a dancer expressing emotion through movement or a sculptor capturing presence with one pose perpetually still, I work with the body as a tool for direct expression. Amidst mountains, fields and in my studio, I dance with landscape and materials to explore our emotional and physical relation to the earth and to each other. 

My embodied way of working and the use of natural materials such as charcoal, clay and graphite allow me to create raw and expressive images. When striking a pose, eyes closed, holding my breath, I can feel how the moment stretches around itself. At once introspective, turned away, it is also when we are most powerful, able to create something new in the world.

Nature enters my work as a source of creative power, belonging and non-human entanglements. Yet my work also expresses the sadness, frustration and anger I feel when confronted with the exploitative destruction of the earth and our ongoing systems of oppression. While working I think and feel through the conflicting emotions that also run through me.

The encounters between body and other are purposefully multi-layered and often hold ambiguities and contradictions. Are we witnessing inner strength or turmoil? Lightness or a burden? Silence or shout? 

Rather than resolving these paradoxes, I am intrigued by their juxtaposition, allowing things to be both, stretching the space of possibility, meaning and action.

Marijke