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Born in 1977 on the Dutch Island Texel where my creative explorations started early on. Those explorations became bigger after discovering my grandfather's old Polaroid camera with a partly dried-up cassette still inside. There and then was when I fell in love with polaroid and old cameras in general and learnt not to pay too much attention to expiration-dates (it can give some beautiful and surprising effects).
Around my 25th I finally found the courage to apply to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and got accepted. But after a couple of months I felt that it wasn't the right fit for me and that I wanted to do my explorations in my own way and time.
A few years later I started to look beyond the Dutch borders and conventional ways of living by travelling around and living in little Vans. That of course had a lot of influence on my work and way of working. That meant during my travels small material resources and a small amount of working tools: pencil, my little travel sewing-kit and charcoal if I found some. Living in a Van learned me that that doesn't necessarily means you can only have little projects. Some of my first installations were created in my Van.
Although Photography still has a prominent place in my work, it is more and more becoming a part of mixed media works (book-art) and installations ('This is what I gave to you'). But then again, installations can sometimes also become a photo series ('What once was, what might still be').
Other elements that often return in my work are textiles and materials I knit/weave myself. And materials that nature provides for.
During exhibitions I like to give the viewer the chance to form their own feelings/ their own interpretation before telling my own perspective about my work. I like to be surprised by what others see/ feel/ think about my work, discover new things I hadn't seen yet myself. But also opinions that have been formed when they see my work, start a conversation about it and perhaps change an opinion, give the viewer a different way of looking at it, discover new emotions. Perhaps discover beauty where they only saw darkness and death ('Paradise-I still exist').
Themes that are important in my work are: the passing of time, the mortality of people/ of things/ of life, nature, emotional struggles but also seeing beauty in the littlest things and in places where they aren't always noticeable for everyone.
I hope you'll enjoy my website,
Miriam
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