Renée Marjolein - Printmaker

Transforming humble dwellings into symbols of endurance and rootedness.

It is not uncommon that in response to uncertainty we turn to favorite places of stability and sameness found in the landscape of our childhood and memory.

While the series of baches began as a reaction to the longing for, and separation from special places, they have become much more.

Old houses and their untamed and abundant foliage have always captivated me. More than just lovely in their proportions and old-world charm, they have the patina of age and lived-in-ness that speaks of endurance and a beautiful ordinary. Their rambling gardens testify to their longevity and knit them into the land.

As the granddaughter of immigrants, my 'place' here is fairly young and I am drawn to places that have a longer history in the land than my own. I have a lesser nostalgia for the land of my forbears, and a greater love for, and desire to be connected to, the land of my children, the Waikato and the old homes of New Zealand.

These places were landmarks along the roads of my childhood. They are becoming symbols of endurance and stability.

Although they are symbolic spaces, romaticised in ink, it is significant too that they are real places with real histories connected to real people. They are not empty, abandoned or impersonal. They are homes and I include the stuff of life; water tanks, ladders, and washing on the line as evidence of their habitation. Because places without people are non-places.

They evoke feelings of home, rest, connection and belonging. They are gezellig, a Dutch term with no suitable English equivalent. They bring to mind places we are drawn to return to whether physically, in memory or in imaginings.

The baches invite viewers to consider their own sense of place and enjoy the enduring beauty in humble spaces.

Renée produces iconic NZ imagery using the medium of woodblock printmaking.

She was born in Hamilton and currently lives near Ngāruawāhia.

Renée has a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Auckland University.

She is currently focusing on a series of Coromandel baches, and is excited to also offer home commissions.