About the Artist

The artist Famke van Wijk (born in Utrecht in 1969), currently working and living in The Hague, The Netherlands, received her education at the AKI Academy of Fine Arts & Design in Enschede. She completed further training in Nice and Delphi before attending the Royal Academy in Amsterdam. Afterwards she received scholarships from the Foundation of Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst in Amsterdam.

The artist has had national and international exhibitions. In the Netherlands her work has been exhibited at the Rijksmuseum and Arti et Amicitae in Amsterdam, and the Museum of Statues at the Sea in The Hague. She has also exhibited at The Old Lead Works in Bristol, L’Institut Néérlandais in Paris, Gallery Mein Blau in Berlin and at the Germinations Europe Foundation in Athens.

Sculptures of her can be seen at the Trippenhuis of the Royal Science Academy in Amsterdam, the West Frisian Guesthouse in Hoorn, at the art collection of the Rabobank in Eindhoven. In the Sculpture Garden of the Anningahof in Zwolle and on the Spui square in The Hague.

Famke van Wijk makes emblematic sculptures and installations of metals and plastics. She lets herself be intuitively influenced by the writings of Church Fathers, scholars, philosophers, esoteric authors and especially the Bible. But this is not expressed in a literal or illustrative manner in her work. She always visualizes from a highly personal metaphoric world
Her Christian faith is her driving force and she refers to a extra-sensual and spiritual world in her statues. Famke van Wijk is trying to say that the boundary between the material and immaterial, or the earthly and spiritual worlds is only subjective.

Education
Royal Academy, Amsterdam
AKI, Enschede
She also attended studies in Nice, Delphi and Amsterdam.
Her work is influenced by the writings of Church Fathers, scholars, philosophers, esoteric authors and the Bible.

Awards
Charlotte van Pallandt award 2006, Museum de Fundatie, Nijenhuis Castle in Heino
Nominated for the Prix NI 1997, Galerie Nouvelle Images, The Hague

Commissions/Projects

• Commission for Art in Public Areas ‘Covenant of Joy and Sorrow’, Jewish Memorial, Oldenzaal (2015)
• Commission for Art in Public Areas ‘Heaven holds a sense of wonder’, STROOM The Hague (2011)
• Commission for Art in Public Areas ‘Sending the Spirit of Compassion’, West Frisian Guesthouse Hoorn (2004)
• Design Millennium ten Guilder coin, Department of Finance, The Hague (1999)
• Commission for Art in Public Areas ‘The Outcome’ Valentijnkade/Kramatweg Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst (1998-2001)
• Commissioned statue for the Joke Smit Award, Department of Labour and Social Affairs (1998)
• Installation ‘The Undertone’, Dutch Central Bank, Amsterdam (1998).
• Royal Academy Museumroute ‘Biologic Suspect’, Amsterdam (1995)