Marleen Maria
Marleen Maria (b.1970) is fascinated by how people are portrayed in the past and the present. In her portraits, she attempts to capture what is real, essential and eternal about a person. The eyes of the subject are the focal point of her work and allow the beholder to see the subject’s soul.
After completing her study in communications, Marleen Maria worked for many years in the advertising, PR and publishing industry. Searching for a more substantial form of communication, she enrolled at the Rietveld Academy. In the Visual Arts department, she explored the self-portrait and experimented with collages, photography, video, performances and painting.
Marleen Maria has developed a personal and distinctive style of painting and photography. She combines classical painting methods with a contemporary style and has become proficient in Renaissance-like techniques and portrait photography. Her creative process involves layers of acrylic paint on large scale canvasses to create figurative and portraiture paintings. In her atelier in Amsterdam, she has set up a photography studio where her models can pose.
Marleen Maria regularly creates non commissioned work and portrait commissions. In addition to her artwork, she has founded a doll line, ‘Dollittle’. Her commercial portfolio includes book covers and posters, and she has completed a number of commissioned portraits for a variety of clients. Her 2019 projects include paintings and photo styling for the book ‘Venusian Kitchen’ and the interior and web design for ‘Casalesorelle’ (https://casalesorelle.com, Instagram/Facebook @casalesorelle), her property in Italy.