Myriam Berenschot - Illustrations

When asked, Myriam defines herself mainly as a teacher, offering painting and illustration workshops, but she also works as an illustrator on commission for her own pleasure.

Schooled at the Academy Minerva in Groningen, she started by following illustration, graphics and abstract painting, but later decided to add a teacher-training course to the mix to broaden her prospects for the future. Finishing with a first class honours in 1992, she then decided to head off to Indonesia for a six-week break with two other colleagues.

Upon their return to the Netherlands the three of them set up their own studio in central Groningen. As well as pursuing their own work, they offered and developed a range of classes from beginners to advanced, for both adults and children. During this time Myriam was also busy giving portrait and watercolour classes at the Volksuniversiteit in Zuidlaren, Drenthe as well as painting workshops at children’s’ birthday parties.

The studio was put on hold in 1998, with the life changing arrival of new members to the various families coupled with moves to new houses and neighbourhoods. During this period Myriam continued with her own work and started making decorative coat racks on commission. She enjoyed being able to work on a smaller scale again by choice and left abstraction by the wayside choosing to go back to her preference of painting realistic and detailed works.

By 2005, and with her youngest daughter Ella in school, Myriam decided to pick up where she had left off and start up the painting workshops for children again. This she has been doing ever since at the neighbourhood playground association: Het Buurt & Speeltuinvereniging Helpman Oost ‘De Helpen’. Shortly, she will be branching out to include evening classes for adults. Also, she plans to resume the painting workshops for children’s’ birthday parties. Other work has included illustrating the plans for landscape designers, as well as giving drawing lessons for the SKC (after school reception) and illustrating a nursery school newspaper.

For the future, Myriam is in the process of joining forces with a couple of colleagues, each with a different creative discipline to her own. She says, instead of being an island in one’s discipline, as so many artists seem to be these days, she wants to see more of a mix between art and music and intends to achieve this through her liaison with them. This could pave the way to a whole new genre of workshop.

If you're interested in seeing more of Myriam’s work, or finding out more about her workshops: Myriam Berenschot

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #21 Autumn 2008 

Suzanne Postel – Murals, Frescos & Portraits

My meeting with Suzanne Postel came out of my curiosity to find out who the artist was of a rather imposing mural covering the entire side of a building contractor’s office, along the Korreweg in Groningen. Having cycled past many times in my daily travels, finally one day I jammed on the brakes and went inside to enquire.

I met Suzanne at her studio along the Eendrachtskade, which is spacious enough to serve as both work and exhibition space. The studio is filled with marvelous paintings at every turn and the area in the back, where we sat and drank coffee, has a wall that is a collage of small paintings, images, and photos of friends and family. I asked her how it came about that one of her murals was on the side of a building contractor’s office. She told me that living nearby meant that everyday she had looked out upon the building and a set of filled in windows that had been painted a rather unimaginative white. This made her fingers itch to do something about it, so much so that she approached them and offered to paint the offending building with a mural. The result is a set of very impressive classically robed women, each standing in a niche bearing a tool or implement relevant to the building trade.

Although always an artist at heart, after her student days and completion of her studies at the art school Minerva in Groningen, she decided to leave Holland for France. Here she lived for a period of ten years where she helped in setting up and running a naturist camping resort with her parents. France was an exciting and challenging period in her life, but she missed painting and the Dutch culture and returned to Groningen in 1999. In her own words: ‘I wanted to cycle across the market place with my children and buy sugar waffles’. Once back in Groningen she set up a studio and has established herself as a muralist and portraitist.

Before starting a piece of work, she does a lot of sketching, takes photographs (in the case of a commissioned portrait) and adds to a scrapbook. A book full of ideas this scrapbook is filled with images, material samples, and text, often poignant lines from poems. A particular favourite is the poet Jean Pierre Rawie. From this process arises a series of puzzle pieces that when put together become the basis design for a mural or portrait. Then turning to canvas or masomite (a specially treated art board) the initial idea is laid down very quickly as an acrylic base. After that she will work further on the idea in oils until its logical conclusion is reached and she is happy with it.

Other strong influences in her work can be seen to come from paintings from the Renaissance and Impressionist movements and from the world of dreams. According to the Chinese one should live out ones dreams in order to move on. One particular dream that she has turned into a painting is a self-portrait of herself, angry and with a dripping paintbrush in her mouth. What it means she is not sure, but it needed to be painted.

With regular commissions and exhibitions, as well as doing all her own public relations, and giving painting lessons to students with an age range of twenty to sixty. Suzanne is not only able to follow her passion but has been able to make it into a successful business.

The opening of her current exhibition entitled ‘De Hoge Lucht’ (The Light from Above), took place on 24 June 2007. The event was opened by Jacque D’Ancona (a renown Dutch journalist, amongst other things).

For more information about Suzanne you can visit her website here 

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design 

First published in the Connections magazine #16 Summer 2007 

East Meets West - Maya Miklic

Comfortably nestled between the dominant modern blockhouses of east Groningen, in a row of seemingly forgotten terraced houses, is the home of Maya Miklic. The minimalist but welcoming interior with wooden flooring, is a complimentary setting for the powerful images of Maya’s paintings, hung in prominent places around the room. Intrigued by the imposing impression of a face eyeballing me as I enter called ‘Wanting’, with a very strong African influence and vibrant colours, I ask her if she has ever visited that continent. ‘No, I haven’t’ she says ‘Other people have said that too, but my work stems from an interest in people’s faces and the emotions that I see all around me, so much so that I have to paint them’.

As a former student of psychology in Ljubljana, Slovenia, Maya refused to accept the confines of her study as a true measure of the human condition. Instead she chooses to explore what she sees and feels about the world around her, with the aid of brush and canvas, often using photographs for portraits or as a stimulating reference for her work. This can be seen in ‘Satisfied’, where she has managed to capture the essence of the subject in a black and white photograph. 

Another impressive work is the triptych of El Tiempo, with its individual parts named el pasado, el presente, el futuro, (past, present and future). This monochrome piece was named after a holiday in Spain and can be hung as a single painting or as three individual panels. An expression her feelings at the time, there are hints of India in the shapes and intricate patterning on parts of this painting. India is a continent that she would very much like to visit in the future and maybe this piece of work reveals that subconscious desire.

‘Heart full of passion’, is a very graphic and striking image, which in its simplicity, with its almost ‘bleeding’, reds shows us yet again that the portrayal of emotions is very important to Maya in her work.

Maya arrived in Holland seven years ago from Slovenia, and has since then established herself under the name of ‘Indivisual’, She is, like many artists today, a multi-faceted one, busy exhibiting here and has plans for a future exhibition in Slovenia (subject matter, Holland!) as well as volunteering her time to work for a group called The Art of Living, who promote an improved lifestyle through the power of breathing. Maya’s talents include graphic and web design, photographic work, and paintings as well as translation work from Slovenian to Dutch.

When asked what direction she sees her work taking in the future Maya replies that she is searching for a more spiritual direction ‘But I am not ready yet’, she says. Like so many other creative people she also quotes wanting to achieve international fame through her work, but for Maya this is not just for personal comfort and acclaim. Her philosophy is that via her art she will be able experience life to the full, by meeting and learning from as many different types of people and cultures as she possibly can. This she sees as the natural way to develop ones awareness and talents in life. ‘To be just as you are, not pretending, this is what I like’, she says. Maybe we could all learn something from this philosophy.

© Alison Day

Alison Day Design

First published in the Connections magazine #8 July 2005