Lolkje van der Kooi

Lolkje van der Kooi graduated as a graphic artist and calligrapher at the art academy in Kampen. Her work currently consists mainly of very detailed pencil drawings and transparent pastel drawings. In very different formats, but always made with great attention to detail and love and wonder for her theme: nature and naturalia. Especially the world under water - for humans, as it were, a parallel universe - is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for her. She chooses to depict her subjects in a quiet and isolated way, without action and background: all attention goes to form, skin, detailing. She sees her drawings as translations in pencil. In this way she knows herself to be placed in a long tradition of nature artists, such as Ernst Haeckel and Maria Sybilla Merian. She often lets her subjects emerge from a dark background, in order to create light in the image. Her work is not only determined by a great love for nature, but also by an equally great passion for the simple pencil, with all those endless possibilities for gradations and nuances. Her studio is located in the director's house of the former dairy factory in Marrum and breathes the atmosphere of a print room and wunderkammer. Studio and (small) exhibition space at home can be visited by appointment.