photo: © Marie Cécile Thijs - White Unicorn, 2012
From September 30, 2018, through January 20, 2019, Museum Jan Cunen in Oss presented a retrospective of work by photographer Marie Cécile Thijs. With a total of fifty portraits and still lifes, the exhibition Between Heaven and Earth showcased the photographer’s strength and versatility. Her surreal images are painterly and timeless. A new photo book was also launched at the exhibition’s opening.
Marie Cécile Thijs takes viewers into her world, where time and space fade away: a fairy-tale universe of floating vases, lifelike unicorns, angelic figures, and magical scenes. Chickpeas rain from the sky. Regal cats wearing crowns stare ahead impassively. Children brazenly stick out their tongues or are frozen in a silent scream.
With surgical precision, Marie Cécile Thijs directs her surreal images. Their light and color recall the work of the great Dutch masters of the 17th century, while their staging and appearance are distinctly contemporary. Her photographs are defined by contrasts: still yet powerful and dynamic, paradoxical yet self-evident, and absurdist in all their seriousness.
For the photographer, time does not exist. In a resounding yet serene silence, everything comes to life. Objects acquire personalities. Portraits become still lifes, and still lifes become portraits. As if in a parallel world, they take on lives of their own and acquire new meaning. We look at them but see another reality. Is there more between heaven and earth?
Marie Cécile Thijs (Heerlen, 1964) studied law at Leiden University. She became a lawyer but exchanged her legal robes for a camera twenty years ago. With a clearly recognizable signature style, she has built an impressive body of work that includes well-known series such as Human Angels, White Collar, Amazones, Horses, Majestic, and Food Portraits.
The photographer’s autonomous work has been presented at art fairs including Art Miami, PAN Amsterdam, and TEFAF Maastricht, as well as at numerous exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad. Her work has also received international awards and is held in the collections of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, several international museums, and many private collectors.
