I had a passion for messing around with paint and color pencils from a very young age and I always had the wonder for colors and creativity. I still have a number of small watercolor paintings of imaginary flowers from when I was 5 or 6 years old.

I grew up in the Netherlands and I would have loved to study Fine Arts, but I was raised in the toxic environment of a religious sect (JW), where any attempt to study was strongly discouraged. The situation at home grew increasingly complex, until I was finally disfellowshipped at the age of 18. Soon after that, I moved to Spain and started a new life in Catalonia. I enrolled in Tourism, and didn’t have much time for painting, but it was still my hobby.

Fortunately, my job as a tour guide allowed me to travel a lot over the next decades, because travelling is my other passion. It also gave me a chance to get wonderful and continuous training in Art history and other subjects.

In the 1990s, a German Touroperater hired me to work on a tourism project in Costa Rica, and I cherish dear memories of the exuberant nature that inspired me to color my canvas and my life! I also lived in Canada and in Antigua, but I was always delighted to come back to what feels to me as the best place in the world: the Mareme coast in Catalonia.

2010 was a year to rethink my life. I realized that it consisted most of all in work, work, work. I felt the need to slow down and meet myself. So I started to make time for creativity and painting classes. Thanks to great painters and wonderful teachers like Salvador Castellá, Ramon Soler and the classes in the art school Blanc de Guix, I was able to improve my technique in acrylics, oil paint and watercolor.Meanwhile, I keep experimenting with mixed media, collage, Dutch pour, mosaic and encaustics. It’s sometimes so hard to make choices; So many media, all so fascinating, still so much more to learn…But I focus most of all on acrylics, watercolor and oil for now.

Since 2020 I dedicate a huge part of my time to making new works, improving my skills and directing art workshops. I find it very rewarding to ‘guide’ other people in their creative process and at the same time, I learn a lot of them!