Biography
Sylvia Reitzema is a fine artist who works predominantly with mixed media. Drawing has always been the starting point and travel has been a major influence; from aerial views that record the layout of the land to assembled drawings created through the motion of transport.
In 2002 she won the Rootstein Hopkins Drawing Scholarship to travel through South Korea for three months and to gather research through drawing on the different religious beliefs and their influences on art and design. During this period however drawings produced within her sketchbook identified the use of signage, which is used universally as a method to navigate through a mapped landscape.
In 2003 she moved to Mallorca and lived there for three years and continued to develop a body of work that explored the local land and architecture.
Her current practice has gathered inspiration from her experiences of place, space and time with the main focus being on the relationship that we have to the land when we travel through it, both physically and mindfully. The history of place on an archeological, geological, personal level is acknowledged through a centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises is translated through the drawn mark and where often surrounding materials are incorporated or used as drawing tools. Signage also interlaces much of her work - identifying how man has mapped and controlled the environment.
Sylvia studied an MA in Drawing as Process at Kingston University, 2001-2002 and a BA Hons in Fine Art at Academie Minerva, Holland, 1995-1997. She currently lives and work in England.R32;
