Monique Jansen is an artist of Dutch and Māori descent who has been making, painting and creating for as long as she can remember. Commissioned for her first artwork at seventeen, creating has been the thread running through her entire life, shaped by a deep love for nature and an evolving relationship with the land of her ancestors.
In her twenties, Monni made the journey to her ancestral home, Te Araroa on the East Cape of New Zealand, the birthplace of her grandmother Charlotte Karaka. There she encountered the carvings of her grandmother's brother, a master carver whose extraordinary line work and storytelling left a profound mark. She returned home with a new understanding of what her own art could hold, and began developing the intricate fine-line style that defines her work today, following the contours of mountains she photographs, the horizon lines of landscapes she loves, and weaving into them the markings and stories of her whakapapa.
One afternoon a quiet moment at the studio sink changed everything. Washing the paint from her brushes, she asked herself: if I wouldn't drink this, why would I put it into the earth? From that question, a new practice was born. She began making her own pigments from sustainably foraged native plants, drawing colour directly from the land itself.
Each piece is made slowly, often over many months, using these natural pigments alongside Indian ink and calligraphy tools, capturing the look, light and feel of the land and interweaving story within every line. The work reflects the colours and textures of Aotearoa, the soft pink of pūriri bark, the earthy tones of windswept coastlines, the greens of native flora and the ever-changing shades of ocean blue. Each artwork is an offering, made with genuine care for the land it depicts.
