"I like to play with balance and time. By connecting the past and present, I create a surreal sense of time. Like there is no time in the image, a frozen moment, kind of floating."
SmithDavidson Gallery is the official gallery for Marie Cecile Thijs with access to the full collection.
Welcome to the surreal world of Marie Cecile Thijs. Portraits of people, animals, flowers and food, they all bear her specific signature. Stillness is key.
Influences reminiscent of the 17th century Old Masters are recurrent in the artist’s work, simultaneously however her personal interpretation is completely contemporary. Thijs plays with her subjects by bringing them to life unexpectedly, or – on the contrary – freezing them in time and space. Objects become characters. They move away from their daily destination, assuming a completely new personality. This provides intriguing creations, where tranquility, motion and sometimes also humor meet.
In the works of Marie Cecile Thijs the unusual is usual. She is specialized in staged photography, and created series like White Collar, Food Portraits, Amazones, Horses, Flowers, Birds & Vases, Majestic and Human Angels. She has also taken many portraits of writers, cooks, politicians, designers and artists.
Multiple series by Marie Cecile Thijs have been published in several media, most notably Het Financieele Dagblad and French newspaper Le Monde. Her work has been included in the collections of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Museum aan het Vrijthof Maastricht, LAM Museum Lisse, the Museum of Photographic Arts San Diego, the National Museum of History and Art in Luxembourg, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond and many public and private art collections.