Marjanka Jonkers

In her artwork, Marjanka Jonkers (Den Haag, 1975) aims for intriguing results that are pleasing to
the eye. Every artwork is a composition of pieces of cloth that have been manipulated and stained
by forces of nature and later worked on in her studio.
In her art studio in Alkmaar she keeps piles of cloth that have been lying in the ground, staining by
natural forces like the sun, rain, wind, clay ground or iron oxidation. After months, or even years
she collects the cloth out of nature and brings them into her art studio. Here the composing of
each artwork starts, combined with the fascination for material research.
How do materials behave? Especially when mixed, chemical reactions may lead to beautiful
results. Marjanka chooses materials like acrylics, alkyd, oil and powder pigments and combines
them to see what will happen when quickly dried, when flowing, biting, crinkling. She decides
what mixtures will end up on the canvas, but the behaviour of the materials determines the result
and finally what you see.
What is leading in each artwork is the result of the natural, chemical and unpredictable reactions
combined with finally acting on these processes in search of balance and unity.

The visual metaphor:
Mankind must react and respond to all surprises in life, wether it’s caused by forces of
nature or human actions.

Marjanka also collaborates with other artists and scientists to extend the influences on her work
and to make it more profound. In Italy she collects powder pigments (clay ground with iron oxide
and marble dust) from a neighbour who’s mining the pigments himself. In the Netherlands she
uses the self-made inks out of trees, berries or flowers, by an artist friend. A steel constructor
provides chemical solutions for staining. And two geologists share their research results as
inspiration for material mixtures on the canvas and ways to manipulate and stain cloth.
The fact that more hands, thoughts and ideas than Marjanka’s own are present in each artwork
together with nature’s influences, makes this concept an everlasting source of inspiration