Annette Luycx
I am a collage and photo-montage artist from the Netherlands based in the countryside of Greece, close to Athens. I also teach collage and mixed media workshops to women online, and teach women from all over the world who come for an artist coaching residency or a collage workshop. I help artists develop artistic voice: I teach them how to activate their inner world and use their life experiences as a source of inspiration for the discovery of their personal visual language. I also do an astrological chart reading combined with art coaching upon request, for more in depth results and to facilitate deeper coaching, better access to the soul and the imagination and easy access to personal archetypes.
I studied sociology and women’s studies at the University of Amsterdam; and earned a graduate diploma in cultural management and policy studies at the University of Paris (Dauphine). In 2012 I completed a Master's degree in Art Education at the Maryland Institute College of Art in the United States. Alongside my formal studies, I worked in the theatre in France (théâtre de la rue) and studied psychodrama in the Netherlands. I began my apprenticeship in the visual arts with ceramics, which I studied in Utrecht, Aix-en-Provence, and Boston. I taught ceramics for several years at St. Catherine’s British Embassy School in Athens.
Since 1990 I have concentrated my creative work on collage and photomontage. I have participated in group exhibitions in Greece and abroad.
I had my first solo exhibition in November 2010 in Athens, called "Portraits in Collage" at Athinais Cultural Centre. My second solo exhibition was
held at Kaplanon Ena Contemporary in Athens in 2017. I showed my "Film Stills": enlarged Giclee prints on Dybond of my handmade photomontages.
In 2014 I set up the IRIS ART CENTRE, a centre for art education and artistic coaching in Greece, and in 2020 I published my book "From Art to Empowerment: How Women Can Develop Artistic Voice", an insightful, hands-on workbook that takes women on an empowering journey of self-discovery through artistic expression. In 2021 I obtained a MISPA Certificate in Psychological Astrology and in 2022 a Certificate in Jungian Mysticism from The Centre for Applied Jungian Studies.
At the moment I am in the process of researching the space between art, psychology and spirituality; I am interested in the amalgamation of these three. I am especially interested in the role the imagination plays as a key human capacity and how art-making can foster self-awareness, personal growth and ultimately self-healing. I am developing new teaching material on the subject Art as Self-discovery, and I am making new work on the theme "Enlightenment", in the sense of "speaking one's truth" (Kant) and ultimate individuation (Jung).