Tienke Zijlstra (Meppel, 1982) lives and works in (north of) the Netherlands.

2025   Certified in BMBE/SMAW Level 1 Arc Welding, TSH, Emmen
2005–2012 Teacher of Fine Arts and Design (first-degree qualification), Windesheim, Zwolle
2002–2004 Cultural and Social Education, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
1999–2002 Advertising Design, CIBAP, Zwolle

2021   DIA (Drawing Inventions Academy), masterclass program led by Arno Kramer, Caren van Herwaarden and Marisa Rappard
2017   Animation Techniques, Digital Art Factory, Assen

2022  Drenthe Talent Prize for Culture

2025–present  Assistant, Metal Workshop Wessel de Ruijter
2022–present  Guest Lecturer 2D, DBKV ArtEZ, Zwolle
2023       Production Team, Into Nature – Time Horizons, Borger–Odoorn
2013–2022   Visual Arts Teacher (secondary education), Vechtdal College, Ommen
2011–2013   Visual Arts Workshop Instructor, Scala, Meppel
2009       Preparatory Course Teacher, DBKV, Windesheim, Zwolle
2002–2004   Youth Culture Worker, Production House, Amsterdam-Noord
2001–2002   Assistant in Photo Studio & Advertising Designer, Theo Berends, Emmen
2000–2001   Advertising Designer, Advice Advertising Consultancy, Wijhe

2026 (upcoming) PAPIER PAPIER, with Josefien Alkema, Tienke Zijlstra, Allie van Altena, Layla May Arthur, Peter Dijk, Rosa Everts, Janke Klompmaker, Tim Blaauw, Jeffrey Linker, Li Hongbo, Peter Boersma and Herman van Hoogdalem. Museum Nienoord, Leek (group)
2025        ZOMERKABINET XIII, Major contemporary drawing on a small scale, Galerie Art Singel 100, Amsterdam (group)
2025        Hoe = Het Nu 2025, ACEC, Apeldoorn (group)
2025        LENTEKABINET XIII, Major contemporary drawing on a small scale, Galerie Art Singel 100, Amsterdam (group)
2025        DRAWING INVENTIONS 2025, Quartair, The Hague (group)
2024        ZOMERKABINET, Major contemporary drawing on a small scale, Galerie Art Singel 100, Amsterdam (group)
2024        TEKENKABINET XII, Major contemporary drawing on a small scale, Project Space BMB, Amsterdam (group)
2024        BORROWED SPACES, with Patrick Mangus, Anke Land, Teodora Ionescu. Curated by Ronald de Ceuster. Ateliergebouw Panta Rhei, Deventer (group)
2023        TEKENEN GROOT, Between culture and nature, with Sigrid van Woudenberg, Bas Ketelaars, Jeanne Rombouts, Monica Aerden, Geetrui van de Craats (curated), Pictura, Dordrecht (group)
2023        ONTMOETING / Råka ut för, with Karin Gerfen, Contrapunt, Zwolle (duo)
2022        ONDERHUIDS, with Femmie Duiven and Ursula Metzler, Studio NA64, Amsterdam (group)
2022        INGREEP & OFFER, with Lee Eun Young, Kunstlokaal No8, Jubbega (duo)
2022        NOORD NU, Drawing Inventions, Tuinbouwschool, Frederiksoord (group)
2022        GETEKEND, CBK, Emmen (group)
2021        TEKENAARS IN DRENTHE, Kunst & Cultuur Drenthe, Assen (group)
2017        REESTZIN, Art and nature walk, Reestdal, De Wijk (group)
2016        TUSSENTIJD, Plataan, Meppel (group)
2012        Graduation Exhibition, Broerenkerk, Zwolle

Tienke Zijlstra creates enormous drawings whose boundaries are determined by the reach of her own body. Like a conductor, she sweeps and smears across large sheets of paper with sponges soaked in ink, extending far beyond the edges. Then begins the process of working out, refining, containing and emphasizing. In her recent work, fleshy, lumpy forms proliferate across the paper: they grow, grasp, merge, enclose, clash, dominate, transform—they seem untamable. But not for Zijlstra. However unstoppable and organically expanding her work may appear, she directs this bodily inner world with the healing precision of a surgeon, without sacrificing its vitality.
You feel her work before you understand it. You clutch your stomach without realizing it, imagining yourself inside the entrails of a gigantic beast—or is it yourself? Zijlstra’s work confronts you with your own body, with growth and bleeding, with processes that continue day and night. With the dreadful certainty that all that is of value is vulnerable. And breathtakingly beautiful.

(text: Caren van Herwaarden)

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Where Zijlstra once portrayed the unstoppable growth of the body, her recent work has taken on new layers. The paper is cut apart, fragments are separated, shifted and reassembled. Forms become entangled, interlock, collide and merge, yet retain their individuality. The resulting collages not only reveal the vitality of an inner, bodily world, but also the dynamics of larger systems: complex, ever-changing, charged with the tension between cohesion and dissolution.

The act of untying and reconnecting is visible in every work. Lines split open and reattach, traces remain, like scars in skin or memories in a body. What emerges is a continuous movement: nothing is fixed, everything seeks its place, and at every moment new connections can unfold.

Zijlstra’s work is rooted in the physical, yet moves beyond the personal body. It invites us to experience the systems that surround and permeate us all — vulnerable and powerful, confining and liberating, at once untamable and guided by a careful hand.

(text 2025)

Short impression from 2022/2023 of my way of working. Studio: Horticultural School Frederiksoord.