Marcella van Zanten works since 1985 as independent artist, teacher and organizer of exhibitions, art education projects and art projects.

When you look longer at an art piece you get more information out of it, especially when you look at it with other people, also when you made it yourself. Therefore working together is inspiring.

Independent Artist

I develop different commissions to challenge people to enlarge their skills in art in the most wide sense of the word. Interdisciplinarity gives an extra dimension to our perception. Our perception depends on our knowledge and curiosity. Merleau Ponty already wrote in his Philosophy that we see more when we are with others looking at the same thing.

Guides help to get the knowledge about what you see in a museum, city or country in a quick and humorous way. Lots of people who come to the Netherlands like to know more about the country and what is still important from the history today. Paintings made for the rich civilians in the seventeenth century are still very beautiful and understandable. Van Gogh painted in the 19th century under influence of the Japanese art and Gauguin to be understood by anybody, to express his feelings so every one would understand. Art made today is readable and even more if you get to know where it comes from.

The foundation Sectio Divina I started to be able to organize, curate and educate about the art made in Amsterdam in the Zomerdijkstraatstudio's since 1934.www.zomerdijkstraatretrospectief.nl shows details about a great deal of the work I did with Monique de Adelhart Toorop and Erik Rikkelman as members of the board of the foundation, later on with Stefan Strauss and Klaas Weert.Job Cohen opened an exhibition in the studio itself in 2009, where a play in the exhibition helped visitors to place themselves in the position of an artist and what choices you can make.The last exhibition in 2010 in Arti et Amicitiae (Amsterdam) showed a selection of artwork from the past and the present. Many schools came to visit both exhibitions to have an interdisciplinairy experience resulting in small self made video's and a strong understanding of the different types of art. The name Sectio Divina comes from the golden ratio which was used to analyze the proportions of natural objects as well as man made systems. The architect Le Corbusier and the painter Dali used it to proportion their work, especially in the form of the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter side is the golden ratio. The Greek letter phi represents the golden ratio:1.6180339887..... One side is for example 1 and the other side 1.62.(1.6180339887)The Zomerdijkstraatstudio's are also based on the studio s in France designed by Le Corbusier.On the internet are nice examples of Sectio Divina, from nature to art.