Marit, a Tribute to the past
After studying fashion and design, Marit started her career working for internationally known fashion companies.
The origin of her love for beautiful fabrics and materials goes back a long time.
As a small child of only 4 years old she was already allowed to use her mother's sewing machine.
Sewing patterns on little pieces of fabric or sewing small holes in pieces of paper.

From the age of 14 Marit designed and made her own clothes, often using old fabrics such as worn out jeans,
old blankets or pieces of material her mother had left in the arts-and-crafts box in the garden shed.

Globalization and Internet are causing a huge cultural shift.
Some languages and cultures disappeared or are in danger of disappearing.
Taking this into account, the digital age has a twofold effect.
Being able to save digitally is wonderful. The downside however, is that physical matter simply disappears.
Beautiful images on glass negatives and slides are gathering dust in attics and digital photographs
often disappear on computer hard drives. Also beautiful traditional clothing from countries and tribes
all over the world may only be left to be seen in pictures on the internet or in musea.
Ancient tribes are being photographed before disappearing completely.

As a kind of reaction to these digital developments Marit did a U-turn.
The combination of ancient crafts with the infinite possibilities of digitalisation
is creating many opportunities for preserving cultural heritage.

Marits mixed media art-pieces are a mix of digital images with folklore, folk costumes, authentic materials,
designs and crafts. In 2014 Marit started to explore working pure digital.
Beautiful paintings, masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, combined with vintage images.
Creating digital collages where images and times melt together.
This also inspired her to write poetry to enrich and complete her work.

Art 'borrowed' from musea and rediscovered photographs are snatched from oblivion.
Long forgotten portraits are given a new lease of life and saved for the future as works of art.

Marit's art is retrospective and a tribute to the past.

Marit Kout, Mixed Media Artist and Keeper of Heritage.