Monica van Rijn
MONICA VAN RIJN (Amsterdam, 1950)
Monica van Rijn ((1950) is a multi-disciplinary, visual artist with more than 200 exhibitions to her name. Besides painting, she designs and makes objects with hidden compartments. Monica is the maker of the installation COLORED BY WAR, the performance art, EVOLUTIONARY THEATRE, and is the founder of Dutch Art Tours. She is the author of ‘THE RELATIONSHIP CALENDAR’, and the biography about her parents called ‘THE MEMORY PLACE, SURVIVING SEVENTEEN CONCENTRATION CAMPS’ (preorder here).
She was born in Amsterdam and grew up in California during the ‘flower power’ era. There, she studied commercial art, sociology and psychology, receiving her Bachelors from San Jose State University. After graduation she traveled to fourteen countries and settled in Amsterdam where she still lives and works.
‘Homecoming’ ‘wandering’ and ‘belonging’ are recurrent themes in all of her work and are all still relevant themes today. The colorful paintings on canvas, on objects, and on her installations trigger the imagination of the viewer and tell their own stories. ‘Colored by War’ is a large wall art installation. It is composed of one hundred portraits on unwritten diaries that change color after dark. In the center of these framed portraits, several of Monica’s film interviews are projected. “It is my life’s purpose to raise awareness and revive feelings of humanity through my art, writing and through the acceptance of other cultures.
Monica is also a trained, international guest speaker. She represents the Dutch Memorial Center Camp Westerbork at schools and public venues. Memory Place is her debut book and is dedicated to all victims and descendants of wars.
Find Monica van Rijn on you-tube for her Tedx talk and film interviews a.o.
