Multi-Media Artist who specializes in
conceptual paintings based on moments of time.
*All profits of any sale will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation in honor of my mother, Maria C. Jongeling.
Nail polish got me started.
As a kid, I would scrape together a pocketful of nickels by cashing in bottles at Lou’s Liquor Store, then proudly saunter over to the Zody’s on Valley Boulevard to trade my coins for nail polish. Every color of polish. This was my kind of paint because it stuck to everything and sparkled.
I covered everything in nail polish, from Barbies to transistor radios. My Dutch parents, still learning the ways of America, were puzzled by their first-born daughter’s artsy tendencies, but they encouraged me to be independent and creative while plying me with old-world Zoute Drop licorice treats that tasted like wonderful salty car tires. Mmm!
At thirteen, I met Dixie, my high school art teacher. She helped me understand how priceless a formal art education could be and encouraged me to pursue art at Cal State Long Beach, where I earned a Master of Arts in Drawing & Painting.
Today, I continue to explore an ever-expanding range of materials and processes, including painting, drawing, photography, stitching, collage, found objects, and construction. My mixed-media works combine personal imagery with cultural references, photographs, text, everyday objects, and materials that carry their own histories.
My work is rooted in memory and the stories we inherit. As a Dutch-American artist and the daughter of immigrants, I often return to Dutch imagery, language, family photographs, textiles, flowers, and memories of my parents' journey from the Netherlands to California. These personal histories become starting points for exploring identity, belonging, women’s experiences, love, loss, nature, and our relationship to the environment.
Travel has also become an important part of my practice. Journals, photographs, collected ephemera, landscapes, and small observations from places I visit find their way into my paintings. I am interested in how a place can become intertwined with memory and how seemingly ordinary objects can hold unexpected emotional and cultural meaning.
Color, pattern, humor, and visual abundance are central to my work. I build my paintings layer by layer, combining the handmade with the familiar and the playful with more serious questions. A Dutch word, a family photograph, a flower, a piece of fabric, or an everyday object might become a small doorway into a larger story.
My goal is not to tell viewers exactly what to see. Instead, I create layered visual worlds that invite them to discover their own connections, memories, and meanings.
Exhibitions include the Brea Gallery, MOAH Cedar, Range Projects Gallery, Colony Theatre Gallery, Avenue 50 Studio, Neutra Institute Gallery and Museum, Betsy Lueke Creative Arts Center, McGroarty Arts Center, Palos Verdes Art Center, El Pueblo Gallery, Pasadena Public Library, South Bay Contemporary, Woodbury University Nan Rae Art Gallery, USU Art Gallery – CSULB, and The Armory Center for the Arts.
