Marie Verstegen was born in 1955 and lives and works in the Volkel municipality of Maashorst (formerly Uden). He graduated in 1983 from the academy of industrial design in the fine arts department in Eindhoven, sculpture at the Academy of Utrecht and restoration and conservation techniques in Venice, Italy.

As a multidisciplinary artist, in recent years he has shifted the focus of his work from painting and sculpture to the traditional technique of printing. He now mainly creates large-format woodcuts that are anything but traditional. Marie's handwriting as a sculptor and painter is clearly recognizable in his graphic work. In his graphic work he plays with form, colour, transparency and different layers in order to create a powerful image.

In Marie Verstegen's woodcuts there are sometimes clearly defined shapes, but more often they are flowing planes that seek each other out for connection and invite the audience to get lost in the work. If you think you're getting lost, your eye comes across a demarcated shape, a hold for your eye. At the same time, these shapes are not as hard as you might think, they blend into the environment and this is partly due to the technique of woodcarving. You see the craftsmanship of the woodcarving artist, carving the gouges that are sometimes placed together in a rapid succession in longer strips or, conversely, in rhythmic shorter strips. Sometimes these hatchings are smooth and with long strokes, other times firm and in compact structures. Involuntarily the attention shifts from the cut-out white areas to the ink, where dark or colorful shapes appear and stand out strongly.

Marie Verstegen's art arises from his participation in life and, just like eating, sleeping and breathing, is part of that life. Marie is an artist par excellence and is inspired by impressions he gains in the world around him in the Netherlands or while travelling. He is inspired by things he has seen, felt and experienced. Verstegen always has his sketchbook with him, he doesn't just copy something, but records his ideas and feelings and translates all this into abstracted images. It's his way of capturing the world around him. Verstegen is inspired by life and the correlations between one thing and another, between the orderly nature of everyday life and the convergence of opposites.