Merijne Spits (1998, NL)
Exhibitions
2023
– How small can you go summer expo, Tiny Art Gallery x RUIS, Nijmegen
2022
– Broos, Residency Masterclass, Keep an Eye – Spacemakers, Galerie Pouloeuff, Naarden
– Storefront Story, Projectspace LOKAAL, Utrecht
2021
– Fata Morgana, Online Exposition (see it here)
– Wall Of Future, Galerie Zône, Leiden
– Offline, Graduation Show HKU, Pastoe Fabriek, Utrecht
2020
– Obstructed Recollection, De Nijverheid, Utrecht
2019
– Ontmoeting in het onmeetbare, Toekomst religieus erfgoed, Nieuwe Kerk, Amersfoort
Education
BA, Fine Art, HKU, 2017 – 2021
Artist statement
Through their multidisciplinary and sometimes site-specific works, Merijne Spits builds installations in which they approach big and overwhelming concepts with personal memories and interpretation. A lot of their works are focussed on the universe and universal ideas such as (the beginning of) time. By making them personal, for example by connecting the beginning of time to the beginning of their own life, Spits processes these heavy concepts. Memories from childhood therefore appear abundantly throughout their work, such as the plastic stars or dino-bandaids that are reminiscent of the early 2000s in which the artist grew up.
The choice for particular materials stems from Spits’ understanding of humans as collectors of time: either by holding on to immaterial memories or by collecting matter from time past, the human relationship with the past is crucial to how we define ourselves. Therefore, both in their installations and individual works, they are fond of structures that encapsulate in a temporal sense, ranging from paraffin sculptures that hold actual remains from the past of the artist, to the way in which their works are held by the space for the duration of their exhibition.
– Text by Menno Vuister (edited), 2021
© merijne