MIEKE VAN RIJ
Mieke was born in 1957 in Leidschendam, a then small village in the now most densely populated area of the Netherlands. The ever diminishing spaces of green around her made her feel lost and as a child she spent hours and hours indoors, drawing, in order to create a harmonious world of her own. Even very young she cherished the works of Jeroen Bosch, Lautrec and Escher. After her secondary education she attended law classes in Leiden, but switched over to studying Arts and Crafts in Delft. For over fifteen years she has been teaching many different creative subjects (drawing, crafts, art history, calligraphy and letter drawing, styling, interior decoration and design) on various school types. In 1991 she was involved in organizing 'Art-O-Fanti', an exhibition in Pulchri Studio in The Hague, introducing Art to young people. In between she printed etchings in small editions and was asked to make cards for special occasions. In 2000 she moved to Sint Eustatius (Dutch Lesser Antilles) as an artteacher, but now she is working as a fulltime artist, dedicating herself to art, writing and music. Her artwork shows an unusual, often dreamlike atmosphere, full of symbolism. She hopes that the spectator will be absorbed by her strange and colourful world. At the moment she is finishing the illustrations and cover for a small bundle of her poetry in Dutch. She translated some of her verses into English and put them to music, three of her songs were recorded with 'Unity the band, in which she was a singer for over a year. Furthermore, she designed logo’s and other artistic items for local- and foreign enterprises and organizations. In 2005 she received a first prize with a 'letterportrait' (which is a symbolic drawing of a persons name) she made for queen Beatrix in an arts and crafts contest, held on the occasion of the queens 25th jubilee. Mieke presented the work to the queen on her visit to Statia. Miekes artwork was printed on the cover of the Netherlands Antilles Mint Set of 2006 to represent Sint Eustatius. Mieke applies watercolour, (coloured) pencil, and pen and ink as media to create her art work. She also crafted a series of three dimensional work, (collages) made of items found on the island recently. For more information write to: miekevanrij@hotmail.com
