M a R i E
C i V i K o V
It's not the eyes that can't see,
but the hearts that are blind
Long Live the Resistance - Glory to the Martyrs
acrylic and oil on
factory Javanese waxblock print fabric
± 245 x 115 cm. x 4, 2025 - 2026
'It's not the eyes that can't see, but the hearts that are blind', a quote from the Koran by Palestinian journalist Wael Al-Dahdouh, which moved me to tears, is the overarching title of this work, which consists of four large double-sided banners painted on imitation (factory-made) Javanese wax block print fabric. The series reflects on various aspects of the colonial economy: the import of colonially produced goods into the local economy (including Mauser rifles which are still used by the Israeli Occupation Forces on Palestinian soil today), the feudal systems of pay and usury on European-owned land, and the weighted use of the derogatory word koelie to describe informal and indentured physical labourers. My grandmother's words illustrate the colonial attitude, including towards labor and the alienation of indigenous workers and farmers from the European bourgeoisie (excerpt text Dewi Sofia for It smells of sweat and Jasmine, 2025, CBK Zuidoost).
My interpretation of my complex family history represents the intertwining of the personal and the political. Between the lines, it reveals the subtle ways in which social and economic class differences influence the perception of one's environment and encourages reflection on how these legacies continue to obscure the systems of oppression that are still active before our very eyes.
The fourth and most recent canvas with which I completed the series for this exhibition is entitled ‘Long live the Resistance – Glory to the Martyrs’. It tells the story, written by my grandmother in her memoirs, of one of her brothers, who heard about a very rare tree species, the sonokeling, which had been discovered in a nearby Kampong (a neighborhood or small village where the indigenous community lived, outside the colonizer's territory). He immediately saw the potential of the wood's unique qualities to transform it into luxury furniture, including a gun cabinet with a glass door for his father (a Western European colonizer), who owned and traded a collection of hunting rifles of the aforementioned Mauser brand.
The other side of the work shows, among other things, their Javanese mother Painem holding one of the hunting rifles high above her head. On her arm, which I depicted multiple times, rests the hand of her youngest baby, the 13th child in the family. The awareness that all her children were raised as far as possible from her cultural origins, which were considered inferior by the Dutch colonizer, starting with their names, traditions, language, religion, etc., and that this caused them to become alienated from each other, still makes me sad.
My great-grandmother Painem died in 1932 from the consequences of malaria and never lived to see the liberation of her country. Although this liberation is partly fictional and colonization by the same powers has continued to this day in other and similar ways, there and elsewhere. At the same time, in this work I draw parallels with the most visible contemporary colonial project of occupied Palestine, in which the use of violence, attempts to erase a culture, and life under apartheid show striking similarities.
Marie Civikov’s work merges her grandmother’s written memoirs with archival photographs and
bright interjections of dream-like images. Civikov’s grandmother was an indischwoman; born to
a native Javanese mother named Painem and a Belgian father. The pastiche of visuals and text
brings the past into the present, critically reflecting on the oftentimes privileged existence of
indischpeople in the archipelago while bringing attention to current forms of colonial
oppression. This series reflects on different aspects of the colonial economy: the import of
colonially produced goods into the local economy (including Mauser rifles which are still used by
the Israeli Occupation Forces on Palestinian soil today), the feudal systems of pay and usury on
European-owned land, and the weighted use of the derogatory word koelie to describe informal
and indentured physical labourers. The words used by Civikov’s grandmother illustrate colonial
attitudes towards labour, and the alienation of native workers and peasants from the European
bourgeois sensibility.
Civikov’s artistic interpretation of her complicated family history represents the entanglements of
the personal and the political. It carefully reveals the subtle ways in which social and economic
class division permeate into perceptions of one's surroundings; urging a reflection on the ways
these legacies continue to obscure the systems of oppression operating before our own eyes.
Text: Dewi Sofia
These in-between unearthly worlds that occupy my being - instalation view - Structura Gallery Sofia, December 2022
In my work, I relate my personal family history to ethical issues about ancestry, history, ethnicity and family ties in both an (Eastern) European and Eurasian context. Emerging from creating a "wearable" form of my paintings, I currently work on loose canvases that are given their shape by the sewing machine from my East Indies grandmother's inheritance. In this way, each piece has indirectly passed through my grandmother's fingers, and thus through those of the generations that came before her, whose voices have long remained unheard and underexposed. Parallel to this, I am working on the unravelling of my grandmother's life story in the Dutch East Indies colony. This has intensified my curiosity about her Javanese mother, about whom relatively little is mentioned in this. Through my own interpretation, I bring her voice to life on canvases shaped as if they can be carried over your shoulders like a shell from the past and hang freely in space like relics. Visual aspects in my work related to my Bulgarian background are added to this and melt together.
2019 - 2020
Studio view - September 2020
2017 - 2018
The revolution will not die with us #2, Robotic Thought, collaboration/performance with Voin de Voin, video still teaser December 2017
2016 - 2017
Mijn recente werk heeft vooral betrekking op humanistische vraagstellingen in een surrealistisch aandoende setting waarin ‘gewone’ figuratie wordt afgewisseld met abstracte componenten in bijna overstraalde heldere kleurstellingen.
Een onderwerp dat veel, meer of minder aanwezig, in mijn schilderijen rondwaart is het onbekende van de dood. Tijdens mijn kinderjaren had ik soms angstdromen over de dood. Meestal kwamen ze wanneer ik half wakker met koorts op de bank of in bed lag. Met open ogen zag ik hoe donkere lijnen als draden op mij afkwamen. Eerst vloeiend en recht, maar al snel steeds meer golvend totdat ze in een grote zware knoop verstikkend op mijn deken drukten.
Deze knopen van lijnen komen sinds enkele jaren op verschillende plekken terug in mijn werk. Meestal symboliseren ze niet de angst, maar eerder het onvermijdelijke en het mysterie van de dood. Blijft er nog iets over van ons wezen als we er fysiek niet meer zijn? En indien ja, kunnen wij, mensen die van elkaar houden, elkaar dan nog ergens ontmoeten? Anderzijds ben ik geïnteresseerd in concrete onderwerpen die betrekking hebben op de Westerse samenleving van nu met haar omgangsvormen, spelregels en rituelen. Die tegenstellingen tussen het concrete en het metafysische vind ik een interessante combinatie waarmee ik graag speel in mijn werk. Mij gaat het er wel om het persoonlijke en particuliere zo nauwgezet mogelijk in mijn werk om te zetten in een beeldtaal die buitenstaanders nieuwsgierig maakt en toelaat in een wereld die ze niet kennen: identificatie noch herkenning zijn mijn doelstellingen; het gaat me eerder om toenadering door verwondering.
My recent work primarily concerns humanistic questions in a surrealistic setting in which 'normal' figuration alternates with abstract components in almost shone bright colours.
A subject that's always more or less present in my work is the unknown of death. During my childhood sometimes I had fear dreams about death. These were abstract dreams of dark coloured wires floating towards me through space. They occurred when lying in bed or on the couch with feverish flu. With my eyes open I saw them approaching me. At first they were straight and even but soon the wires were tangled together, became heavier and pressed their suffocating weight on my blanket.
Since a couple of years these knots of wires often are visible in my work. They don't as much symbolize the fear of death, but more the inevitability and mystery death brings with itself. Does anything of our spiritual being remain when we're physically not here anymore? And if so, is it possible for us, people who love each other, to meet somewhere? On the other hand, more concrete subjects concerning nowadays western society catch the same amount of my interest. These two, the physical and the metaphysical, I find interesting to combine. My intention is to convert the personal and private as closely as possible in my work in a visual language that makes outsiders curious and permits them in a world they do not know: identification nor recognition are my goals; it's rather about rapprochement by wonder.
Marie Civikov, Oktober 2016
Studio January 2017
2015
As a child, lying on the couch with feverish flu, I could sometimes dream with my eyes open. These were abstract dreams of wires floating through space. From the couch, from under the blankets and through the floating wires in the distance, I could see my parents, my brother and my sister sitting at the dining table. The wires that came down on me – still nice at the beginning, light in weight but dark in colour, straight and even – had a calming and reassuring quality, but never for long. Soon the wires became heavier and pressed on my blanket, causing slight panic. And what I always tried to avoid at such a time (by thinking “stay calm, stay straight”), inevitably happened: the wires were tangled together and that meant death.
This is one of the associations that came to my mind when looking at (a detail of) my work, which today often shows coloured irregular webs. At this time most of my work is created without a plan, impulsively, often inspired at the moment, the works elaborating on each other.
installation This Art Fair - december 2015
2014
In the series of paintings I've finished in 2014, symbols that are well known in Western culture transform and are given a new meaning. This way a holy cross turns into an intersection or an unfolded cube; when numbered, it becomes a dice cube.
Once there was an American doctor who, after weighing six patients during their dying process, concluded that 21 grams is the mass of the supposed soul. A baby's heartbeat starts at approximately 21 days and a dice cube has 21 dots (in Dutch we call those "eyes"). Life, so it seems, is a matter of luck.
In Heavy Refraction of Light, not only the light is broken in a crystal that is too heavy to lift; the work itself is made up of broken pieces of linen, consisting of several canvases. At places where I could not stand the colour (I have a love-hate relationship with colours), the canvases are reversed, making visible the intersections of the composite pieces of linen on the back. In this way, there is always the option to take a new path.
2013
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2009 - 2012
2002 - 2008
