Vision and Dream:
The Art of Marja Lee Kruÿt
*Click on the images to see larger versions
"Pearl of Wisdom"
My background in fashion illustration is probably evident in my paintings, as well as my love of harps and music. I also like to paint children, representing that childlike part of each of us. And fairies. Living on Dartmoor, fairies are bound to turn up in the pictures! I have always loved the Victorian 'fairy painters' such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, as well as the Pre-Raphaelites. But the artists who have probably influenced me the most are Klimt, and Sulamith Wülfing, and the Renaissance painters Botticelli and Benezzo (particularly his angels). Wülfing, in particular, was an artist who also worked on a soul level. She drew angels even when she was a little girl, and often talked about her angels and guides. She was influenced by Krishnamurti, the White Brotherhood, and the Theosophical Society. She was a mystic, really, and expressed her mysticism in her art. I think there are things that we can express in art, in pictures, and symbols, that aren't always so easy to express in words. Pictures can speak directly to the soul. Wülfing's best pictures do this, as do some of the great religious pictures from the Renaissance. I think art can be healing, moving. It can startle you, or even upset you. Sometimes that's a good thing, it wakes you up. When you live with a picture, keep looking at a picture, it can move you from one way of thinking to another, from one level of consciousness to the next. I like pictures that make you keep on looking, that reveal themselves and their meanings slowly. That keep on giving you more, and a little more, every time you look."
"Big Friend"