""Martimosa girl"." Installation

Dutch mosaicist Mariël Klein (1964) was born in Ecuador. Her family moved back to the Netherlands when Mariel was two. From childhood on, creativity has played a vital role in her life. Painting, designing clothes, and mosaic-making are in Mariël's DNA. Inspired by her dear uncle and local known Dutch artist Jo Pessink, she started making her first mosaics at the age of 18. And it has never stopped since then.

As the economic situation of the '90s forced Mariël to take on a side job, she started working at the Royal Dutch Airlines, enabling her to travel the world and be inspired by local (mosaic) art. Especially the treasures in places like Venice and Ravenna (Italy), Madaba (Jordan), Isfahan and Shiraz (Iran), Istanbul (Turkey), as well as "her beloved" Latin America, inspired her to develop her unique signature art.

In her thirties, Mariël started taking classes at the Art School in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Her classes included portrait and abstract painting to broaden her scope. Mariël began taking classes in Byzantine technique at the Mosaic Art School in Ravenna (basic, flooring, and portrait masterclasses) and the Orsoni Mosaic School in Venice (Italy). She refined her mosaic craftsmanship through the classes and became enchanted by working with glass (fusion, colored, and 24 karat gold smalti). She never abandoned working with these ancient renowned and luxury materials mixing them with pieces of ceramics of all sorts, pebbles, and marble- resulting in her mosaic identity.

Mariël has received several applied commissions for public spaces in The Netherlands over the years, including "The Quies Romanum" wall mosaic at the Grand Hotel Karel V in Utrecht (the Netherlands). This 8 meters Neo-Byzantine wall mosaic depicts the story of a Roman cemetery excavated while starting to build the new annex to the hotel.
The wall mosaic and publicity that came with it were the starting point for creating "burial art," followed by in-memorial portraits. As Covid caused much loss of lives and grieving, Mariel has often been asked to create personalized "in-memorial memories," such as grave ornaments, urns, Memory Jars, and portraits.

Over the years, Mariel has been experimenting with free artworks in her unique style, best described as colorful, contrasting, native, naïve ánd geometrical. She creates her signature art by "freely painting with hand-cut pieces" (Verven met scherven).