Nothing is independent of its circumstances

Visual artist and illustrator Maaike Bakker works in various drawing, sculpture, installation and digital mediums. The application of collage in her two-dimensional and paper-based works sparked a collaboration with the David Krut Workshop to create a series of monotypes with added chine collé.  

Bakker plays with abstraction in her work, seeking to depict scenes from alternate realities. Her practice further explores limitations imposed by systems or structures. She aims to examine and pin point where such structures may become excessive and irrelevant, ultimately investigating the notion of futility. She employs a number of ‘visual languages,’ which, when used in multiple ways at once, lead to abstracted dialogues that are punctuated by various visual disruptions and new ‘trains of thought.’ Her resulting abstract works create feelings of both flow and disjuncture. 

Her works are typically precise – straight edges are common in her use of shapes, as are flat areas of colour or those which are uniformly gradated. The visual languages she employs in her art-making create compositions that have energy and a sense of movement. There is a feeling of spatiality in many of her drawings, a kind of impossible architecture of lines, shapes and textures.  

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‘Nothing is independent from its circumstances’ | July 2022 Print of the month