Simone di Foligno

Simone di Foligno (she who hears) is inspired by some of the deteriorated frescos who were shown on a poster on the walls of the tiny town of Pale close to Foligno in Umbria where the hermitage of Santa Maria Giacobbe is high in the mountains. Impossible to reach.

We happened to visit this town while looking for an eco park we never found. But this village is particularly interesting for its history of a paper mill, the grottos and its castle. It was established in the tenth century. Ancient! We have to go back there again because everything was closed when we arrived. We were hungry and thirsty and the only little cafe/restaurant which looked open (everything is closed in Italy from 1-4) but wasn’t, offered us a few biscuits and some juice and then when we wanted to pay the chef who was preparing meals for that night could only accept cash so she said it was a gift. So nice.  Anyway these very strong faced Madonnas were looking at me from these posters and straight away I felt that I wanted to do an artwork about them. I used some collage from the antique poetry book I found at the local antique market for collage and combined some of my environmental issues (climate change etc) in the artwork. Hence the greens and the lone tree. An interesting colorful little artwork which has meaning and encourages discussion besides looking lovely at any wall space.

Has been mounted on a deep edged quality artist panel. Can be removed from panel if collector would like to have it framed as well
Frame in picture is not included

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‘A work is born from a kind of confused emotion. The work is an attempt to elucidate that emotion.’ Puvis de Chavannes

‘An abstract language that reveals references to an aesthetic figuration with a surreal flavour. This is the art of Marijke Lambregtse, an Australian based contemporary artist of Dutch origin, who focuses her artistic research on the relationship between man and the world, in its most hidden aspects. Her paintings are often characterized by the presence of human-like figures, whose facial features vanish overwhelmed by fields of colour, annihilating gestural communication and leaving the latter in complete control of emotions.

An alternation of more gestural brushstrokes and more detailed and sharply described elements, give the work a pleasant dynamism. Looking at Marijke Lambregtse's paintings, we feel out of place, in awe, as if we have crossed the threshold into another world and we are suddenly strangers. (Francesca Brunello)

Her recent abstract figurative works arise from a growing eco-anxiety and a critical concern for the state of the world today. Shaped by direct encounters with climate change, pollution, displacement, and environmental injustice, the work responds to systems that prioritise profit, control, and exploitation over care and coexistence. She seeks to harmoniously merge message and aesthetics, using emotionally charged strikingly colorful, acrylic paint, recycled materials, text, and texture to confront viewers with both beauty and unease.

A professional dancer, teacher and choreographer before crossing over to studying visual art and gaining a BVA majoring in sculpture at Griffith University in Brisbane she was awarded the Karl and Gertrude Langer Award which resulted in a solo exhibition at the Brisbane Town Hall gallery.

Since then she has been exhibiting regularly with several solo exhibitions, being a finalist in numerous art awards and has been widely collected in Australia and overseas.

Brunswick Street Gallery Small Works Art Prize 2026
Lethbridge 2025 Small Scale Art Prize salon finalist
Finalist Abstraction Exhibition Petrie Terrace Gallery 2025/2024
Finalist in Lethbridge 2024/2023 Small Scale Art Awards Salon de Refusés
Finalist in the Brisbane Rotary Art Show 2024/2023
Finalist in the Brisbane Portrait Prize Salon des Refugees 2022
Finalist in the RQAS annual Exhibition 2023
Finalist in the Amore exhibition at Artprenr Gallery 2023
Finalist in the Queensland Figurative 2022
Finalist in the Lethbridge 20000 Small Scale Art Award in 2022, 21, 20 and 2019
Awarded the Power of Creativity Art Prize by Contemporary Curator Art Magazine in 2021
Highly Commended in the Abstraction Exhibition Royal Queensland Art Society 2021
Finalist in the Rotary Spectacular Brisbane in 2019 and 2018