Joosje Kerkhoff was born on May 30, 1956 in Takoradi, Ghana. After moving from Bagdad to the Netherlands, France and Italy, the family settled in Madagaskar for a long time. She completed her entire primary school education and part of her high school there, and as such, grew up with the French language.

Her family returned to the Netherlands in 1969. After her high school she started an educational degree in handicraft and textile arts. She never completed this degree. The artist longed for the freedom and enjoyment of creating art, and was not motivated to pursue a career in education. She has been living in Luxembourg since the year 2000.

She uses a wide variety of expressive forms and materials in her work. She prefers to work with organic materials, often uses clay, both fired and raw.

Also she picks up shards of ceramic and glass found during the multiple voyages she undertakes with her partner, to use them in her work on a later date.

There where she finds wild clay, she brings some home to make copy’s of ancient pottery out of the stone age, the iron or the bronze age found in that region.

“In my work I respond to the need to link with the past. With my, our ancestors. Our history, our origin. I feel this to be essential in order to be able to live into the future. Out of respect to life and the way it was lived we will be able to justify our present existence. I would like to refer to my work with terms of humanism, feminism, ecologism, animism and spiritualism.”

Responses to ‘Gaia’s breath’

François Liénard, art history teacher, collage artist, poet, art collector and cultural activist (engaged in publishing and organizing various exhibitions):

“Beautiful work, a beautiful oeuvre, I would even say. Lively, poetic, strong and skillfully designed. What you have created could work well as an exhibition in a professional environment.”

Certificate of artistic merit

Awarded for work in the years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2023.