Like a dancer expressing emotion through movement or a sculptor capturing presence with one pose perpetually still, I like to 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 each other.
While working I playfully move between drawing, performative gesture, sculpture and photography. 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 and connected, able to create something new in the world. My embodied way of working and the use of natural materials such as charcoal, graphite and mud allow me to create raw and expressive images in which content and process merge. A kind of thinking through making which foregrounds the emotional, entangled, and conflicted nature of our being in this world.
Grounded in the joy and beauty of life, my work doesn't say away from intense emotions of sadness, outrage and anger. Whatever the outcome, I see my practice as a way of nurturing intimate and caring relations to life and to others.
Buddies '26
Exploring resonance, contrast, tension and difference, Buddies is a biennial exhibition in which artists from diverse disciplines are invited to select works from the collection of Atelier Herenplaats and/or collaborate with one of the resident artists. The biennial showcases the resulting works alongside each other and opened on Friday the 16th of January 2026.
Alterotopia
Alterotopia is a collaborative project and website which evolves through creative encounters between practices, people and places of change. In Alterotopia we are resonating, raging and figuring more-than-human power, transformative change and radical belonging. Initiated by Flor Avelino and myself, Alterotopia is an invitation to dance with the trouble together by thinking-, feeling-, and making-with.
Affiliated Artist-Researcher
For the coming 5 years I will be part of the POTRANSI research project as affiliated artist-researcher at Utrecht University. POTRANSI explores how societal power relations can be challenged and reshaped to contribute towards more just and sustainable futures. Drawing from methods such as Theatre of the Oppressed, Photovoice, and Storytelling, the 'Transformative Power Arena' will explore practices at the intersection between science and art and push boundaries on how we can collectively learn.
Art * Utopia * Politics - Dreaming in the Dark
The Art Utopia Politics sessions brought together a diverse group of artist-researcher-practitioners who are actively experimenting with the role of creative and artistic practices in cultivating radical collective imagination and alternative forms of politics—be they disruptive, emancipatory, agonistic, speculative, or prefigurative. As one of the participants I developed a written and artistic provocation as well as a site specific life performative sculpture.
Choreographies of power
Building on the deep resonance between my artistic practice and prof.dr. Flor Avelino's research on power, paradox and justice, I was comissioned to create a new series of work as an integral part of her inaugeral lecture. The works are an embodied exploration of power(lessness) and entanglement and featured prominently in her lecture and upcoming publication. A new edition of ‘Earthling Entangled’ of 120 x 180cm was also created and exhibited in the Senaatzaal of het Academiegebouw.
Choreagraphies of Power
Building on the deep resonance between my artistic practice and prof.dr. Flor Avelino's research on power, paradox and justice, I was commissioned to create a new series of work as an integral part of her inaugeral lecture. The works are an embodied exploration of power(lessness) and entanglement and featured prominently in her lecture and publication. A new edition of ‘Earthling Entangled’ of 120 x 180cm was also created and exhibited in the Senaatzaal of Utrecht University.
Counterbodies
Counterbodies brings together the work of artists whom each offer a distinct interpretation of the body, as a thematic and visual source for research and experiment. This exhibition invites a renewed exploration of the body in all its facets, and thus a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationship to others.
Here Be Dragons
Exhibit with drawings and mixed media works by Iris Frerichs, Maja Badnjevic en Marijke de Pous.
"Legend goes 'Here Be Dragons' would appear on maps just like mapmakers would place monsters and other imagined creatures to mark unexplored areas. There is appeal in the unknown as much as it unsettles. We search for tension and juxtapose opposites. What might we find? We scatter. We become what is other, while structures and landscape become creature."
Commission: performative sculpture & music video
In opdracht van de internationale School voor Wijsbegeerte (ISVW) heb ik een site specific 'performative sculpture' gemaakt als onderdeel van het filosofisch video essay 'Als de waarheid een heks was'. Het essay is gemaakt in samenwerking met filosoof Tim de Mey, auteur Annelies Verbeke, cellist en componist Saartje van Camp (Spinvis) en videograaf Stefan de Graaff. In aanvulling op mijn performatieve sculptuur heb ik in nauwe samenwerking met Saartje van Camp de 'exit music video' gemaakt.
Drawing Inventions Academy 2022-2023
Deelname aan de 2022 editie van het mastertraject hedendaags tekenen voor professionele kunstenaars van de Drawing Inventions Academy. Onder begeleiding van Arno Kramer, Marisa Rappard en Caren van Herwaarden.
Residentie ateliers Lange Hilleweg
Residentie van vier maanden in groot en licht atelier aan de Lange Hilleweg 235. Deze verdiepende werkperiode los van mijn studio aan huis is mogelijk gemaakt door beeldhouwer Els Kingsma die van begin Maart tot eind Juni haar prachtige atelier aan mij beschikbaar heeft gesteld. Tijdens het Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend exposeer ik een selectie van nieuw werk dat tijdens de residentie is gemaakt.
Artefiction
Public Art Project in Amersfoort which included two residencies, a temporary public art installation of 3 months and a joint publication. I was one of nine selected artists. The group consisted of three Amersfoort based artists, three based in the Netherlands a three international artists.
Shop Window Performance / Not my logo
Performance in a shop window in the city centre of Utrecht, The Netherlands (40 min). The video registration and limited edition colour print on paper were part of my graduation work at HKU.