Marije Bijl

“Nothing we use or touch can be expressed in words that equal what is given by the senses”
(Hannah Arendt)

Therefore, I use not words, but images.

I am a storytelling artist, I was told, and I agree utterly with that. But I do not want to tell a story. I want to hint at a story. Combine fragments of stories into a strong image that can maybe spur the viewer to make a new one, or at least question, maybe even augment the one (s)he has in his or her head.

Maybe that, which I want to show about humans and their stories, is ambiguous. I know that our identity, be that individual, local, national or global, is a story. Yet. I believe that story. I need it myself too. We all need to be a story. Yet. It is just a story. An amalgam of choices, connections, way of presenting that cannot be defined as ‘the truth’ but isn’t a lie either. Something that is all together not present in the world, in the way that it is something you cannot touch, yet at the same time it is very present as is steers our actions and thoughts. Those of you and me as well as industry and nation leaders.

We are a storytelling species. We naturally try to connect everything we see, everything around us, into a storyline. It is by connecting things into sto...

Academy of Art in Arnhem, the Netherlands, autonomous art and graphic arts.
Academy of art in Tilburg, the Netherlands, autonomous art, video and animation

Exhibition at La Nef, Le Noirmont, group, 2018-19
Exhibition at Galerie le Caveau, Saint Ursanne, solo, 2018
Exhibition at Onishi Project gallery, New York, group, 2018
Exhibition at MyMicrogallery, Milan, group, 2018
Exhibition at Zhang’s studio, Song Zhuang, group, 2013
Exhibition at Galerie Clement, Amsterdam, group, 2010
Exhibition at Lucas Schelkens, Amsterdam, duo, 2010
Exhibition at CHIC Art dessin Paris with Galerie d’Ys, group, 2010
Exhibition at the ‘Young Dutch masters @auction’ Amsterdam, group, 2009
Exhibition at the Art Amsterdam with the TH Gallery, group, 2008
Exhibition at the TH Gallery, duo, 2008
Exhibition at the TH Gallery, group, 2007
Exhibition at the Theaterplan theatre in Eindhoven alongside their production ‘Mistero buffo’ Solo, 2007
Exhibition at the Art fair Cologne with gallery Goncourt, group, 2005
Live painting of a mural and a simultaneous exhibition at the Riff Raff Urban Arts event, group, 2005
Exhibition at gallery Goncourt, group, 2005
Exhibition at gallery Goncourt, group, 2004
Exhibition at the Appel theatre ‘Tantalus’ Solo, 2004

Gallery Goncourt moved to Amsterdam and is now Gabriel Rolt

Gallery d'YS is still going strong in Brussels

Regretfully, Gallery Clement in Am...