Mirjam Lugt will need no introduction to Hawkes Bay’s local artists and collectors as the owner of ‘Ingrids Picture Framing’ in Hastings for the past 35 Years.
While Mirjam has always held a passion for art, the year she spent studying fine art at AUT cemented her love of the creative process. Through the challenges of raising a family and running a business, she attended workshops and courses that helped her sustain and develop her art. Her current style came in 1984 from the experimentation with the printing and development process in a photographic darkroom known as photograms.
Mirjam starts her process with sketched studies and executes her ideas through a painted or collage arrangement. The forms are directed by the intersection of colour and the placement of irregular geometric forms, which are adjusted to achieve a composition with the right tension, balance and negative space. Concepts for some of her work have arisen from her observations of the urban environment, with a particular interest in the textured grit and imperfect order of road markings, concrete and building facades.
Aside from the obvious collage arrangements, Mirjam’s work hold echoes of constructivism in its almost austere abstraction, reflection on urban space and assemblage of forms. Her chosen palate speaks to the influence of Colin McCahon, but she also finds influence in the works of Rosalie Gascoigne and Aboriginal art.