Born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, Marijke moved to Italy at the age of nineteen where she attended several courses at the 'Scuola Internazionale della Grafica' in Venice.
She was asked to join 'La Cagnara', a local satirical newspaper, with cartoons about the Veneto Brenta area and not much later she was hired by the daily Venetian newspaper 'Il Gazzettino di Venezia'.
Starting to work in a select group of Italian cartoonists for the local and weekly cartoon-section, soon her cartoons were to be seen on the main and national pages of 'Il Gazzettino'.
During that time she won six prizes in important Italian graphic contests such as 'Il Premio Perhavec Tufani' (Ferrara) and 'Umorismo e Satira' (Dolo).
As cartoons are not so popular anymore since 2001 (tolerance for political satire has decreased drastically worldwide), once back in the Netherlands she decided to do something completely different and switched to writing and illustrating children's books.
For her art work she uses programs like Painter X and Photoshop CS5.
Marijke: 'I love digital illustrating because its creative possibilities and ways of combining them are limitless; it is almost like being in possession of a magic wand!'