Sanny Bijvoet

‘Making art is an inner call. I wake up and go to bed with this’.

Quoting Artist Dorothea Rockburne ‘ I have to paint, it’s like breathing; no paint no life’.

Sanny is a diverse artist based in Amsterdam Noord, The Netherlands, with an eclectic taste so to say. Since she was a kid, Sanny has...

‘Making art is an inner call. I wake up and go to bed with this’.

Quoting Artist Dorothea Rockburne ‘ I have to paint, it’s like breathing; no paint no life’.

Sanny is a diverse artist based in Amsterdam Noord, The Netherlands, with an eclectic taste so to say. Since she was a kid, Sanny has loved creating in a wide range: drawing from fashionable people to non-existing islands with the whole infrastructure, making her own magazine with her own drawings, painting on paper and objects. She also liked building little paradises from wooden blocks and cardboards surrounded by the plants from her mom collected from everywhere in the house. She started making jewellery at a very young age. She was talented at creating and searching for TREASURES the whole day and never stopped with it. Although it took a lot of effort to free herself from the unpretentious background, HER MOTHER was always the loving power to support and HER FATHER the engine of discipline to continue when she was young.

For Sanny, making art is meditation, energy, search for authenticity, happiness and soothing her concern of today’s world. Her hands follow the materials and the tools like a braided river. People, colours, contract, textures, compositions expressions are her inspiration

She loves working with reused paper of all sorts including photos, pages from old books and magazines set in with upcycled vintage frames with that beautiful contoured glass. NATURAL rough products like gemstones, metal, tribal beads and old leather are also favourites of Sanny; It feels like being in contact with the SOUL OF LIFE, the source where every living creature comes from.

She constantly pictures everything around her which could be reused or adapted into something more AUTHENTIC. The reused images are DISARMING.

Working on FRAME ART started in 2008. Her mixed media art consists of realistic subdued animals and people in surrealistic area. All show vulnerability by the look in their eyes, the COMPOSITION or their pose.

One of her projects named KINTSUGI BAG, started officially in 2021 as a kind of harvest of something that had been simmering there for a long time. It turned out into gold repair on bags made of Dutch army canvas. Kintsugi is a Japanese repair technique with gold paste in the traditional ceramics of tea ceremonies.
From her mid twenties she already did investigation in old patine layers of antique furniture and later shown in her art work as her private life as well the perfect imperfection, sobriety, stillness, resistance against mass production. It became more and more part of her life. Sanny kind of lived a Wabi Sabi-like life with her children and shelter dog.
Nowadays she feels the urge to become more visible, to make herself heard. Highlighting this imperfectness with KINTSUGI.

As for the bag itself: the GREEN CANVAS, the colour of nature which is restored with GOLD, the most precious material we possess. The stillness of the large green surfaces with a little touch of gold here and there LIKE THE COSMOS.

Sanny combines her art with coaching children and adults in the world of art through Lijmlab (www.lijm-lab.nl) and as Art Intermediary for Amsterdam Noord municipality.