Ank Draijer was born in Leiden, The Netherlands. She took her first painting classes while growing up in her home country. For forty-three years she has been living in Latin America. Her first stop there was Peru, followed by Colombia, where a couple of years were spent living in the Amazon jungle. In Bogota she attended screen-printing classes with Dutch artist Berendina Bakker, learning new techniques of artistic expression. For the last thirty-five years she has called Costa Rica her home, where she has taken classes with both Jim Teologos as well as Max Rojas.

 

Her work is strongly influenced by the rich colors and overwhelming nature of the tropics, particularly of Costa Rica. The energy and healing power that emanate from nature keep feeding her passion for painting. In her work she expresses her concern for the natural environment. She is conscious that nature actively offers us teachings, sending us signals of climate change, challenging us to be aware of our role and responsibility as humans. She finds it hard to imagine a future without the healing powers of nature’s energy, deeply understanding the interdependence between the forests, the oceans, the wildlife they sustain, and us.

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Her work visually alerts us of the energy and power that nature holds. These forces have the capacity to both create and destroy, sometimes resulting in a very beautiful destruction. The paintings remind us that none of us are separate from our environment, and that we should be humble and careful when finding easy solutions to our day to day problems, specially those that ignore nature.

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Her paintings has been exhibited in group- and solo exhibitions in the United States of America, The Netherlands, France, Colombia, Uruguay and Costa Rica and are in private collections in Costa Rica, Poland, The Netherlands, Spain, The Czech Republic and The United States of America.