Seed to Seed (Gallery 1) is a collaboration by Cairns-based artists Tijn Meulendijks and Claudine Marzik which has involved them in a series of exhibitions over the past 4 years cultivating a shared interest in the natural environment and abstraction, expressed through their different mediums: primarily painting (Claudine), and ephemeral plant-based installations (Tijn). ‘Although growing up in Switzerland and the Netherlands’, the artists write, ‘we both have been living in Australia for many years and we have an extensive knowledge of plant and plant material from Australia. In Seed to Seed, we engage with the cycle of vegetation observing the rules; we aim to capture its movement and rhythm, and to give form and shape using a similar perception. Although we are using different mediums, our views have similar aesthetic values.’
Seed to Seed comprises 2- and 3-dimensional works which respond to, and reinterpret Australia’s tropical far north including a site-specific installation of Darwin plant life.
Image: ‘Seed to Seed’, installation view (detail), NCCA, 2015; image courtesy the artists
Claudine Marzik is a self-taught artist, primarily painter, who is influenced by mid-20th century Abstraction and Minimalism. Born in Basel, Switzerland, she migrated to Australia in 1988 and is based in Cairns. She has held around 16 solo or duo exhibitions in various cities around Australia and internationally (Japan, Switzerland), and including venues such as Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, and Kick Arts Contemporary Arts, Cairns. Claudine won the Painting Prize in the 2013 Waterhouse Natural Science Art Award (SA Museum, Adelaide), and the Primary Award in the 2012 Redlands Art Awards, Queensland. www.claudinemarzik.com
Tijn Meulendijks works with nature, and with vegetation in particular. He holds a Master of Floral Design from Hertogenbosh, The Netherlands (2004) and his lifelong interest in botany and the human perception of nature has become the greatest influence in a practice largely involving site-specific installation and works on paper. Tijn has exhibited his work throughout Queensland, and in The Netherlands, and including for key ephemeral sculpture-based events such as Floating Land, Noosa Regional Gallery, and Strand ephemera, Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville. He is a past winner (2009, with Claudine Marzik) of the Port Douglas Sculpture Award. www.tijnmeulendijks.com