I am a storytelling artist, I was told, and I agree with that. But I do not want to tell a full story. I want to hint at the persistent existence of story. Outline but parts of a tale that we all have knowledge of. Combine fragments into a strong image that can maybe spur the viewer to make a new story, or at least question the one they currently have in their head.
Our world is made of tales, we make our identities with them, colour our world with them, give our lives a sense of place through them, try to find purpose within them.
Ever since I have been to China, my work has focused increasingly on European identity and that which is perceived as European ideas, an identity and school of thought that is on the cusp of a change, that has become unsure of it’s certainties.
In my paintings and drawings, my subject matter are people that are well known examples, or even inventors, of what is widely seen as typically European ideas. Ideas that are fragmenting, made up of different pieces or parts that sometimes only just and sometimes no more fit together to build a face as we are used to perceive faces, that build up identities like we are used to constructing them. Masks that could be truths, symbols that could be philosophies, paint that could be flesh, lines that could be thoughts. Or emotions. Or rifts. Or forgotten distortions.
We are a storytelling species. We naturally try to connect everything we see, everything around us, into a storyline. It is by connecting things into stories that we make our greatest discoveries, and make our gravest mistakes.
Bio:
Born in the Netherlands in 1970.
Studied Art at the academy or Arts in Arnhem and Tilburg, lived as a storyboard artist and part time bar tender for a while, until she got tired of living from gig to gig and became the manager of the restaurant and event rooms at Snowplanet, an indoor ski hall near Amsterdam.
In 2003 she decided to go back to art, and has been painting and drawing since then. Before she went to live and work in China for four years she was represented by Galerie Goncourt and later the TH gallery in The Hague, Galerie Clement in Amsterdam and Galerie D’Ys in Brussels, who brought her work to the Liste in Cologne, the Amsterdam Art Fair and Dessin Paris.
After her return to Europe, her work was picked up by the curator Stefania Carrozzini who exhibited it in New York and Milan. Within Switzerland her work was chosen by the art organisation Ursinia for a solo show in the Swiss Jura as well as for the Swiss yearly inter- cantonal competition “Cantonale Berne-Jura”
Marije Bijl currently lives in Vienna, Austria.
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Vendor Biography
I am a storytelling artist, I was told, and I agree with that. But I do not want to tell a full story. I want to hint at the persistent existence of story. Outline but parts of a tale that we all have knowledge of. Combine fragments into a strong image that can maybe spur the viewer to make a new story, or at least question the one they currently have in their head.
Our world is made of tales, we make our identities with them, colour our world with them, give our lives a sense of place through them, try to find purpose within them.
Ever since I have been to China, my work has focused increasingly on European identity and that which is perceived as European ideas, an identity and school of thought that is on the cusp of a change, that has become unsure of it’s certainties.
In my paintings and drawings, my subject matter are people that are well known examples, or even inventors, of what is widely seen as typically European ideas. Ideas that are fragmenting, made up of different pieces or parts that sometimes only just and sometimes no more fit together to build a face as we are used to perceive faces, that build up identities like we are used to constructing them. Masks that could be truths, symbols that could be philosophies, paint that could be flesh, lines that could be thoughts. Or emotions. Or rifts. Or forgotten distortions.
We are a storytelling species. We naturally try to connect everything we see, everything around us, into a storyline. It is by connecting things into stories that we make our greatest discoveries, and make our gravest mistakes.
Bio:
Born in the Netherlands in 1970.
Studied Art at the academy or Arts in Arnhem and Tilburg, lived as a storyboard artist and part time bar tender for a while, until she got tired of living from gig to gig and became the manager of the restaurant and event rooms at Snowplanet, an indoor ski hall near Amsterdam.
In 2003 she decided to go back to art, and has been painting and drawing since then. Before she went to live and work in China for four years she was represented by Galerie Goncourt and later the TH gallery in The Hague, Galerie Clement in Amsterdam and Galerie D’Ys in Brussels, who brought her work to the Liste in Cologne, the Amsterdam Art Fair and Dessin Paris.
After her return to Europe, her work was picked up by the curator Stefania Carrozzini who exhibited it in New York and Milan. Within Switzerland her work was chosen by the art organisation Ursinia for a solo show in the Swiss Jura as well as for the Swiss yearly inter- cantonal competition “Cantonale Berne-Jura”
Marije Bijl currently lives in Vienna, Austria.