Born on the 19th of June 1987, I spent the first few years of my life in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Just after my fifth birthday I moved with my parents and two brothers to the United States where I spent four years rollerblading, playing hide and seek and bobbing for apples on a dead-end street in New Jersey when the news came that we were moving again. We headed back to the old country, this time to the suburbs of Paris where I stayed through High school graduation. Surrounded by French culture I discovered my passion for great cuisine and the fine arts.
After finishing high-school, I took a gap year in Bologna, Italy where I learned how to make every type of pasta from scratch and while doing so I learned the language. Filled with great stories and recipes I moved to Amsterdam to study fine arts at the AHK (Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten), where I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art Education. During the four years of my studies I had the opportunity to spend a semester at Pratt Institute of the Arts in Brooklyn, New York. Here I improved my skills as an artist, spending as much time as possible in the painting studios and enjoying rooftop evenings in Williamsburg.
After finishing art school in Amsterdam I spent half a year in London visiting galleries and building my portfolio before returning to the Venice of the north. It is after my London period that I started making cutouts. I was ready for a change, and the “old-fashioned” oil painting that I was doing at the time no longer seemed the appropriate technique to represent my inner thoughts. So I started cutting birds out of paper, loads of birds. This new technique helped me rediscover myself and lead me to fly back to whom I was.
Every airy cut in the paper I make to create a bird is hand drawn, I do not set up my cuts with pencil, my work is direct and from the heart. At first I was shy and still searching so I started off small, and as I continued to develop myself. As time passed my birds grew in size, beauty and complexity. No feather is the same, every cut is unique.
As an homage to a passed loved one, together with the support of a friend I wrote and illustrated a short story. This is the story of a young fox in search of happiness. She travels through lands unknown in search of a magical place called “Anywhere” (Overal en Nergens), where it is said she will find happiness. Just like the birds I had created before, every illustration of “Going Anywhere” (Kleine Vos, op zoek naar Overal en Nergens) is handmade with the help of my trusted x-acto knife and steady hand.
At the end of March 2020 my second book “ Kleine Vos, het mooiste wat er is” will be published in the Netherlands.
I am currently living and working in a tiny village in the south of Spain called Polopos. If you are interested in getting a custom made artwork, or if you would like to purchase any of the work on this website please feel free to contact me.
Visit www.casa3polopos.com to follow more of my adventures in Polopos
