background
Background
Being one of five children Marthie has had an idyllic childhood in a rural surrounding with many contrasts. It was this loneliness and simplicity in lifestyle itself, that influenced her creativity. Sometimes there was so much of nothing; but exactly that nothingness became the driving force to experience the beauty of a nullity so intencely. For this reason there is a strong focus on composition, colour and detail in Marthie's work which generally reflects a complete story. As a small little girl she was consciously aware of how fragile life is. How exposed and vulnerable people and their positions are placed in between and amongst the laws of nature.
In her work Marthie is often inspired by others. Mainly by her parents, authors from the Bible, philosophers, or for example the music of Pink Floyd. In the book of Peter we read: All people are grass; their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers and the flower falls! This flower is nothing else than the poppy she photographs with so much passion. For Marthie this little red fragile flower stands symbol for blood. Blood means life as well as death. Beginning and end. Death might be and end, but the end is always a begining of something new. This little flower must die in order to give birth to a new life! The moment human beings are born they already start to die, but most of them leave a seed (an inherritance) behind before they turn back to dust.
Do not forget war! War is the father of all… the seed of war hibernates in the blood of the mothers womb. The paradoxes of life are of great inspiration to Marthie. During the First World War the battlefields at the western front were flooded with red poppies. Man claims that these flowers grow in ground which is impregnated with shedded blood. The blood of innocent young children which are still shed to this day to caress the ego's of tyrants and politicians. Exactly like the cross of Jesus Christ, their crosses in the Commonwealth cemeteries stand symbol for useless bloodshed.
Poppies are people. Splendid, colour-full, lively and refined. Beautiful but also fragile and defenceless! In portraying this flower Marthie recognises beauty and decay, life and suffering to survive; joy and sadness, birth and decline, the color of life faighting against the shadow of death! Hope of a new life against the desperation of keeping up the existing, treason and temptation locked up in humanity. A very small seed that grows to a perfect creation and then by merciless attacks, wind and storms, it becomes.....nothing. Dust! But decline and dead is part of living and for this reason it's also a component of beauty.
It is for this reason that the burned down ruins of Marthie's birthground are of inconceivable beauty and value to her. A visit to Susannaspoort in the district of Edenville always brings new life to her creativity. The home of her childhood was burnt to ruins. But in the ruins she rediscovered the little girl again. This bloody fire purified this home from lost wandering soles which invaded it 30 years ago. Although the house was burned down, it's soul lived on. The surroundings are still the way it was in the beginning when God created heaven and earth. Marthie frequently combines these pictures with stories of former days, with new pictures to a collage
Marthie's great dream is to translate as many possible proverbs, portraits, parabels and stories from the Bible with her works of art... believing to finish it before she herself returns to dust.