Interview in ArtDependence Magazine

Published in september 2025 – by Dirk vanDuffel (klik hier voor Nederlandse versie)

Power, History, and Change: The Art of Marit Otto

Thursday, September 11, 2025

"Power, History, and Change": The Art of Marit Otto

Dutch artist Marit Otto experiences art on many levels and in many different ways. She looks for aesthetics and eloquence but also for a particular angle.

Marit Otto creates contemporary engaged art. She says: “It has a certain urgency. It is reflecting us, people and the zeitgeist. Images speak louder than words and basically appeal very directly to our feelings. My images are something of a mix between activism and philosophy, they want to engage in dialogue.”

ArtDependence (AD): How does your work reflect your view of the world right now?

Marit Otto (MO): My work is a reflection of the Zeitgeist. It’s what I distract from the daily news, developments, movements and fashions. Questions it provokes, sadness it arouses, anger that it sparkles need to find their ways into something visual and meaningful. Everything eventually solidifies into an image that hopefully radiates something universal, embodies beauty and is also identifiable as critical or/and philosophical. The image may be abrasive, provocative and controversial, but it must also be attractive. It must appeal to the viewer.

This appeal is essential so that, after their initial encounter with the image, viewers feel compelled to explore it further.

AD: What role do you think art plays in connecting people today?

MO: To be honest, I have mixed feelings. On one hand we see an increase of art lovers all over the world. It has become less elitair and accessible for the masses. That’s a good development. On the other hand we see that commerce is getting a vast grip on every aspect of art in every art discipline. It has more and more become so intertwined with capitalistic motives. While I truly believe, artists should be independent in their minds and souls. Their talents should not be used for mere financial gain and profits but to offer the world an alternative route or narrative. I believe that art is essential for connection and nuanced communication. But, that being said, also for a bit of fresh air in the minds and hearts.

AD: What message or feeling do you hope viewers take away from your art?

MO: I hope to shake them up a little and make them contemplate about the topics I present to them. This is my message always; there are alternative routes to the one we are all walking now. Change is up to us. But for seekers of beauty I hope to meet their expectations too. Celebrating beauty in art is not vain.

AD: Can you tell us the story behind the artwork artwork, Man’s World, painted this year.

MO: We see a few men toying and tossing around with a blue ball, resembling the earth. One of them pushing the biggest ball has a likeness with Sisyphus, a figure from Greek Mythology. Sisyphus was a cunning man but made the mistake to challenge the Gods. Time and again he managed to escape the wrath of the gods, but in doing so he only made his ultimate punishment worse. His penalty was that he had to push a boulder up a mountain in Tartarus until the end of time.

There are a few hooks in this respect with this day and age where men challenge Gods and her creations in many disrespectful ways. What and who this challenged God is and what it represents is something that differs for each individual. Yet we are all witnesses to the dismantling of her creation. You could say whomever God is: supernatural, a miracle or nature, she’s used and exploited by fickle men with egoist mindsets.

The rock that is eternally pushed up the mountain represents history, which, though
possibly in a variety of guises, repeats itself endlessly. I would add: without genuinely learning from it. The other men in the picture are no celebs in this regard, but merely a group that enthusiastically and devotedly follows a supreme leader, which is the one manifesting itself by masculine scream and roar.

Read whole article at: https: //artdependence.com/articles/power-history-and-change-the-art-of-marit-otto/

Main Image: Marit Otto, Man’s World, Acrylic on canvas

More works on Art to Collect

7 maart 20227 maart 2022

Interview in the collectors art book

I’ve got a publication in the collectors’ art book Interviews (with artist) van Al-Tiba9- contemporary art. This spread refers at an in dept interview earlier in 2021. This is the link to that interview:https://www.altiba9.com/artist-interviews/marit-otto-social-issues-in-aesthetics-paintings.

Ik heb een publicatie in het collectors’ art book Interviews (with artist) van Al-Tiba9- contemporary art. Deze spread verwijst naar een eerder diepte interview in 2021. Dit is de link naar dat interview:https://www.altiba9.com/artist-interviews/marit-otto-social-issues-in-aesthetics-paintings.

10 mei 202110 mei 2021

Interview @ StartDesignArt

(NL) Er is een kort interview gepubliceerd op StartDesignArt, (startpage for professional art and design). In dit interview probeer ik wat inzicht te geven in mijn denk en werkwijze.

Hieronder een beknopte weergave, het hele interview is te lezen op StartDesignArt.

(ENG) StartDesignArt (startpage for professional art and design) published a short interview with me . In this interview I try to give some insights in the way I think and work.

Below a brief summary, the whole interview can be read at StartDesignArt.

As an artist I am driven and stimulated by the zeitgeist, current events, daily absurdity and human shortcomings. In other words, the condition humaine. Engagement is not so much a choice but a visual outcome of what naturally goes on in my head. I look for the common ground and wrap it in a somewhat aesthetic image. I find aesthetics an important part of my work because it is the connection for the underlying idea. The term elusive is used when people want to characterize me. That elusive is not my chosen definition. For me everything falls together in a logical way and there is a clear underlying motive. ……. read more click me

I like to set something in motion, no matter how small. That may be my motivation and the bigger concept. Painting is kind of a spiritual necessity for me. It calms you down but it is also a fight, a fight with matter, patience and with myself. With painting, more than with anything else, the action is never self-evident, you can never fall back on previous successes, the solution for a good result is neither self-evident. ………..read more click me

“Be a master and a designer of yourself”, says Friedrich Nietzsche. This is about empowerment, about the ability to improve yourself, to be allowed to develop and grow despite (at least that’s how I read it) descent, nature and nurture. By shaping yourself you also make a start on shaping finer and better circumstances and who knows, maybe a slightly better world. ………………..read more click me

Basically I have this certain urgency to create. This urgency can also be ‘disappearing for a while’, but more often it is a compelling thought that imposes itself on me. This can be an idea, a word, an image, a sentence, a statement. By nature I have a restless soul and a head like a crowded house. Producing out of something that goes on in my head is tantamount for opening a valve to let some pressure out and create new space. So for me personally, a creative process is also very healthy for my mind. It keeps things in balance. …….read more click me

Conversely, it would be vain to state that I might be able or willing to influence others. I hope perhaps to inspire others. If we zoom out for a moment, you can currently see that engaged art is regaining a place within visual art. That is a great development. …….read more click me

24 maart 202129 maart 2021

Interview Al-Tiba9

I am selected for an interview with online art platform and magazine Al-Tiba9. To read the entire interview check link:

https://www.altiba9.com/artist-interviews/marit-otto-social-issues-in-aesthetics-paintings.

For a short impression see below:

10 Questions with Marit Otto

Marit Otto is a multi-disciplinary artist. Her artworks have a strong sense of aesthetics and a firm arrangement of color and composition. Her creating process is comparable with the process of a graphic designer. The concept, the idea is leading.

Otto’s art is often a personal reflection of social issues and current affairs. Her art is highly aesthetical, but it also contains distressing elements that evoke a feeling of uneasiness. This contradiction is a recurring theme in her artwork. Do you really see what is shown? What lies underneath?

To the artist, innovation is not a purpose in itself but the result of progressive insight and the need to stretch and push her own boundaries. Her two latest series, Metropolitans and Brave New World, are her response and reflections of all that occurs in modern society. It shifts from irony to dystopia.

She is also working on a series of digital artworks that listens to the name Heroes and a larger multi-disciplinary art installation called Remains Of Today. This contains small environmental artworks of found objects and materials, short philosophical stories to accommodate it, music composed by a musical composer called Ali Reza Tahoeni, and the artist making a video clip to finalize it.

Marit Working- Videostill from Hands by Morgendust. Made by Raymond van Olphen

INTERVIEW

You are a multidisciplinary artist; thus, you work with a vast range of different techniques. How and why did you start experimenting with different techniques?

Me experimenting with various methods and techniques have something to do with the lack of artistic dogmas. My background is as a graphic designer, and I brutally entered the art world ‘without asking’ when I was 25. I had no academic approval, so to speak. At first, this was a disadvantage when it came to opportunities and credibility. On the other hand, it was an advantage; I had no set boundaries and, more importantly, no pretense. I just wanted to make myself happy before even wondering about me getting accepted in the art world. This gives tremendous freedom to experience and create. My first and biggest artistic love was painting. I felt a deep need to paint. Nothing tops what kind of magic a simple brush can do. Mentally stepping into this other world, feeling lifted and in touch with some kind of hidden universe…….

Read entire interview @ https://www.altiba9.com/artist-interviews/marit-otto-social-issues-in-aesthetics-paintings

Who is Al- Tiba9

Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art is an international exhibition of contemporary art, featuring art in the field of Photography, Installation, Sculpture, Video art, Virtual Art, Performance, and Fashion design. Its annual exhibitions held at MAMA National Modern and Contemporary Art Museum of Algiers, majestic five-story building, is one of the jewels of neo-Moorish architecture and popular venue for contemporary art in Algeria. Al-Tiba9 Contemporary Art aims to seize, in a particular way, the social reality that consists of creating an interface between the West and the Arab world.

Al-Tiba9 exhibits many well-known, established artists from different backgrounds. It introduces emergent artists to the international scene with a primary focus on contemporary art reflecting modern society and its environment, encouraging innovation and diversity of mediums, which engage potentially the today’s art scene. For this reason, Mohamed Benhadj, founder and curator, has established annual international exhibitions since the Al-Tiba9 foundation in 2013. This has grown a network of collaborations with museums in Algeria and Spain, Art professionals, and international artists.

Al-Tiba9 (الطباق) focuses on light as a manifestation of energy, to achieve multiple levels of reality. This transgressive contemporary show emerges between lights and shadows, human and artificial from here and there, reaching for profound hope but staying rooted in reality.

— Mohamed Benhadj, Founder & Curator