What is

What is by Marijke Lambregtse
While I was working on this small original artwork and thinking about the environmental and humanitarian issues the world is facing and at some places more than others this feminine tree shape starting to appear
It’s about everything we are facing now it’s about the environment, the housing crisis, women’s issues warming of the planet, extinction and endless unnecessary wars!

As I’ve said in many statements before our very existence is inextricably intertwined with the natural world. ... Our physical bodies are built up from the elements and according to the laws of nature. 
Harrison Ford of Conservation International, speaking at ‘The Ocean’, puts it brilliantly when he says “Nature does not need people”. If we continue to behave so irresponsibly there will come a time when the human race will become extinct, however nature will continue as it had before our particular species came into being. Nature does not deal in human cycles. Nature deals in life cycles of species’. (Times of Malta) 
So I wonder often what is our place in nature, it is our home for the time we are here and my place in nature is to treat it with respect and be frugal with the environment, but also don’t lose our humanity. Stop dehumanizing people, stop creating unnecessary wars, make peace and don’t be complacent. We need nature and each other like the air we breath. We need nature like the air we breath. This painting is consumed by these thoughts and I hope the viewer will wonder and ponder with me.
Requires framing, some framing options are shown in the Insitu pictures, it doesn’t need to be framed behind glass so there are many different options e.g. mounted on a board or in a box frame and can easily be done by your local framer or as shown by the Bluethumb options. It will also look lovely with a mat board of your favorite color.
Varnished and signed on the back

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‘A work is born from a kind of confused emotion. The work is an attempt to elucidate that emotion.’ Puvis de Chavannes

‘An abstract language that reveals references to an aesthetic figuration with a surreal flavour. This is the art of Marijke Lambregtse, an Australian based contemporary artist of Dutch origin, who focuses her artistic research on the relationship between man and the world, in its most hidden aspects. Her paintings are often characterized by the presence of human-like figures, whose facial features vanish overwhelmed by fields of colour, annihilating gestural communication and leaving the latter in complete control of emotions.

An alternation of more gestural brushstrokes and more detailed and sharply described elements, give the work a pleasant dynamism. Looking at Marijke Lambregtse's paintings, we feel out of place, in awe, as if we have crossed the threshold into another world and we are suddenly strangers. (Francesca Brunello)

Her recent abstract figurative works arise from a growing eco-anxiety and a critical concern for the state of the world today. Shaped by direct encounters with climate change, pollution, displacement, and environmental injustice, the work responds to systems that prioritise profit, control, and exploitation over care and coexistence. She seeks to harmoniously merge message and aesthetics, using emotionally charged strikingly colorful, acrylic paint, recycled materials, text, and texture to confront viewers with both beauty and unease.

A professional dancer, teacher and choreographer before crossing over to studying visual art and gaining a BVA majoring in sculpture at Griffith University in Brisbane she was awarded the Karl and Gertrude Langer Award which resulted in a solo exhibition at the Brisbane Town Hall gallery.

Since then she has been exhibiting regularly with several solo exhibitions, being a finalist in numerous art awards and has been widely collected in Australia and overseas.

Brunswick Street Gallery Small Works Art Prize 2026
Lethbridge 2025 Small Scale Art Prize salon finalist
Finalist Abstraction Exhibition Petrie Terrace Gallery 2025/2024
Finalist in Lethbridge 2024/2023 Small Scale Art Awards Salon de Refusés
Finalist in the Brisbane Rotary Art Show 2024/2023
Finalist in the Brisbane Portrait Prize Salon des Refugees 2022
Finalist in the RQAS annual Exhibition 2023
Finalist in the Amore exhibition at Artprenr Gallery 2023
Finalist in the Queensland Figurative 2022
Finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award in 2022, 21, 20 and 2019
Awarded the Power of Creativity Art Prize by Contemporary Curator Art Magazine in 2021
Highly Commended in the Abstraction Exhibition Royal Queensland Art Society 2021
Finalist in the Rotary Spectacular Brisbane in 2019 and 2018