Marten Ten Broek

i believe in taking responsibility for as many of the elements of my art as i can, from its inception, to the things it is made of and the tools it is made with

i have concurrent streams of work in a range of media, with thirty years of relentless practice. recent work processes i am engaged in are painting, hammerforging steel and iron cutters, tools and knives, making and keeping bonsai, some ceramics, lots of drawing. in earlier iterations i have made guitars, ridden fast on homemade skateboards, sewn clothes, sat in orchestra pits, made films and had them in festivals both here in nz and internationally. in still other times, i have carved bone, marine ivory, shell, stone, plastic and wood

somehow, my formative experiences have resulted in my relentless pursuit of creation. i come from an age in which if it did not leave you with one eye or burn down parliament and as long as you were home by dark, it was probably okay

i am polymathic and have come to some understandings about what it is that may bind together separate and distinct practices, how they might facilitate solutions and digressions inside each other, and how that might be applied to creation

this has lead me in some most useful directions, as a producer of art, hand in hand with necessity. i regularly make and use both materials and tools with which to inform my various practices

i hold a bachelor in mediarts with a moving image major and an honours in painting, and a post graduate diploma in teaching