(1987) The Netherlands
Maurits Sterkenburg is an all-round artist. As a child, he was fascinated by animals, loved colour and started using wool to make remarkable little creatures. Sitting in the back of the car, he was always playing with the threads of wool in his jacket pockets. Later, Sterkenburg discovered plaiting and finger crocheting, and used several techniques to make these colourful figures. For this special art form, he invented the name kolozaïk: a colossus (kolos) coloured as in a mosaic, consisting of (acrylic) wool. Sterkenberg exhibited his ‘kolozaïk’ at the Art Brut Biënnale (2018) in Hengelo. His work has also attracted attention in France and Germany. Over the years, Sterkenburg has revealed himself to be a painter and poet as well. He has published several collections of poetry, and he appears regularly as a ‘spoken word’ artist.
Sterkenburg has his own YouTube Channel, in this fragment he talks about his self-invented name for his art ‘kolozaïk’.
In 2018 Sterkenburg exhibited his art on the Art Brut Biënnale, this is an example of his work:
