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Mary Koekenbier was born in 1942 in Alkmaar. As a descendant of a family of gentleman farmers, butchers and restaurant operators, she grew up in an environment in which the size of livestock was self-evident. Her many paintings of cows still bear witness to this. When she started to develop her artistic aspirations, she left the family business and learned to paint in an expressionist way. Mary's work bears witness to more than 40 years of passionate artistry. Her Dutch and French landscapes, cows, flowers and portraits are dominated by a swirling color scheme, which gives her work a special allure.
Because of her training by grandmasters of the Bergense School, Arnout Colnot and Jaap Sax, Mary is still characterized as a daughter of the Bergense School. Her earlier work was therefore characterized by the dark color tones that are so typical for this movement. Mary evolved her own style and started using more and more color. In recent decades, her work has also shown kinship with the Groninger Ploeg. At the same time, and that is what makes her work so special, there are interfaces with great Fauvist artists such as Matisse, Derain and De Vlaminck, for whom it was also primarily about colour.