Surprisingly, DM Mak’s big move back to the Midwestern US was not self-initiated but rather came to her via a job opportunity for her Dutch partner. She embraced the opportunity and reports positive feelings of her experience so far in the Twin Cities. She came to the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District in search of studio space, reaching out to various places by word-of-mouth recommendations. By kismet, she landed in the Holland Arts East building, as it is on the way from her home to her kid’s school.
Mak has been practicing in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District for almost two years. She comes to the Twin Cities after a transatlantic relocation from The Hague, Netherlands. She is a Midwesterner by birth, incidentally sharing a history of place with preceding famous women artists. DM grew up in Fort Dodge, Iowa, which is also the birthplace of feminist art royalty, Mary Kelly, and went to the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where later feminist art staple Ana Mendieta studied.
In the usual Midwestern fashion, her family didn’t see eye-to-eye with DM about getting an art degree, and she was led into obtaining an accounting degree. Although this was a secondary career choice for her, she let this path take her to new places. She lived and worked in Australia and Luxembourg and during this time, rekindled her desire to go to art school. Being based in Europe, she applied to many academies on the continent, landing at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hauge, Netherlands. One of the reasons she felt drawn to this school was its wealth of history, being the oldest running art academy in Europe–over 400 years old. There, she was influenced by the simplicity of the Dutch lifestyle and the Dutch design aesthetic.
DM reports that her practice during her time in Minneapolis has become distinct. She used to be prompted by a longing for home and place, based on personal narrative. Since returning to a place closer to and more like her original home, her work has shifted more toward ideas of memory and forgotten memory that weren’t hers to begin with. Working often with charcoal and limited paint pallets, she mines scenes from photos that are lost–photos where no one remembers who is in the images any longer. She embraces the plethora of interesting errors in old photos like blur, damage, and overexposure. These damages and flaws are like memory itself, delivering a bigger picture of moments rather than the small details. The artist wants viewers to see the work and feel close to it, but not through exact recognition of the people or places. Her work aims to create a connection with the viewer by compelling them to conjure up their own memory, recognizing the shapes of people in their own lives without being distracted by faithful representations of fine features. She describes her work as sometimes odd and mysterious because not everything about the situation in the image is presented at face value for the viewer.
DM Mak will be participating in Art-A Whirl this year. To view her work and interact with the artist, stop in to the Holland Arts East Building from May 19 – 21.
Article by Jasa McKenzie, images by DM Mak
