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Marian Bijlenga uses textiles in her work - cotton, paper and horsehair, for example - but the application of the textile itself is not her main goal. The suppleness of the material enables her to discover new forms, transparent patterns and complex closed shapes.
Structure is the constant factor. In her earlier work she developed structures resembling written symbols, like handwriting, calligraphy and Chinese characters. Her later work draws inspiration from shapes found in nature: streams, spirals and leaves.
Over the years Bijlenga has developed her own technique, and she uses materials that are generally unfamiliar in the textile world. Before the 1990s she constructed spatial drawings with fabric thread - spatial, because the pieces, fixed with dressmaker's pins, are slightly removed from the wall or surface so that they seem to have a floating quality. These 'drawings' consist of pieces of coloured fabric fixed with glue. However, these proved to be fragile and vulnerable, so Marian looked around for a material with a greater natural stiffness. Horsehair taken from horses' tails turned out to be the ideal material. It enables her to simultaneously construct dense, complex patterns and transparent, open structures. Although these later pieces are strong and resistant, they still give the appearance of fragility. Traditionally horsehair was used to reinforce cloth and furniture - today it must be imported from South America and China.
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Each piece of work is constructed from loose elements. To start with, Marian makes many similar pieces - dots, leaves or lines. A project evolves by attaching these elements with pins to her white studio wall, and making a composition by reflection and repetition of the almost identical shapes. The art of removing elements plays an important role in the process, and intuition is more important than a clearly preconceived plan. Marian may start the whole process of composition several times until she is happy with its final shape and scale, and it can take some considerable time before the last changes to details and accents of colour are made. Finally she makes a drawing of the composition on a transparent, water-soluble fabric. All the loose elements are connected by stitching them onto this fabric with transparent thread. When all the elements have been joined together, the piece is washed in order to remove the soluble fabric, and it is then dried flat.
Bijlenga develops structures. That may be why she is fascinated by nature and observes in detail the way things grow. Her sources of inspiration can be found in nature itself, in leaves, twigs and branches from plants like eucalyptus, lavender or willow. She has a fast-expanding collection of dried leaves, and has created a book of collages using these. The found materials that inspire her can also be pinned onto the wall to form the basis of different compositions, or to build structures that may be the source of inspiration for a new piece.
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Until 1998 Marian used only the natural colours of horsehair, but more recently she has introduced red, blue and green colours. It was the blue-dyed horsehair that first inspired her to make new pieces based on the movement of water and air. These movements seem to be more easily captured in horsehair, and the new more abstract forms have challenged her to consider creating outdoor pieces.
It is hard to imagine her fragile pieces hanging outdoors, but Bijlenga came up with an idea which makes this possible. For strength and durability she dips the pieces of horsehair in wax. For an exhibition located outside she has pinned open structures against the trunk of a tree, creating spiral-like movements. The forms were taken up by the surrounding natural world, by the branches and the crown of the tree, by the wind and the clouds. It worked beautifully!
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In spring 2001 Bijlenga had a new and quite different exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam. Her Majesty the Queen of Holland was invited to be guest curator for the exhibition, The Presentation of Dutch Art in the Stedelijk Palace. The Queen chose a work of horsehair and cotton, consisting of brightly coloured dots. The inspiration for this piece came from the floating, round patterns on Japanese paper. There was much interest and appreciation from the public for this work.
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Horsehair is a medium that expresses well Bijlenga's ideas about form, rhythm and structure. The material itself does not have any symbolic meaning or value. However, her work recently struck a more emotional note when she worked out, for her own pleasure, portraits of her children from their own hair. This inspired her to make a more experimental self-portrait. By combining a number of layers in the same portrait, she captures different points of view. She decided to continue this idea with some more abstract and anonymous portraits. Although they are portraits, they still have an abstract character, and like her other work leave room for interpretation. That's exactly what Bijlenga says she wants from her work:
'I hope people become inspired by seeing my work. Most of the pieces are untitled so that people can fill in their own free associations.'
Marian Bijlenga won a Bronze Medal at the 10th International Triennial of Tapestry in Lodz, Poland earlier this year. She also had a solo exhibition at Scottsdale, USA in 2001, and her work will be on display at the Body and Soul exhibition at the American Craft Museum in New York in September 2002. More examples of her work can be seen in the Telos Portfolio Series Marian Bijlenga, ISBN 1-902015-21-5.
This article is from The World of Embroidery, Volume 52 No.6, © Yolanda Rustenhoven.
Yolanda Rustenhoven has a degree in modern and contemporary art history. She lives in Amsterdam where she works as a curator. She is currently working on an open-air sculpture exhibition, Beelden at Zorgvlied (www.beelden.org).