She came to the Netherlands in 1962, with her parents, temporarily at first, because of her father’s leaf from work. Due to the political situation, however (New Guinea was handed over to the republic of Indonesia), the family was forced to stay in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands were a strange country to the Bons family. They had never been there. Like so many Indo’s they had the Dutch nationality, and were more or less brought up with Dutch culture, but Edith Bons had never felt Dutch: it was not her culture, only her nationality. The Netherlands, to her, were an unknown motherland she had to become familiar with in the course of many years. Especially when she went to the acadamy of arts, where she hoped to find originality, she did not get the baggage she longed for. Information and techniques were based on an exclusively western point of view. Her work was found to be too decorative, too narrative – which in the arts of the nineteen eighties seemed to be a taboo. In her compositions she inclined towards symmetry, she looked for balance in her work. Equilibrium. In western aesthetics this was not done.

Immediately after she finished her studies (1985), Edith went to Indonesia, where, after all, part of her roots lay. Until 1962 her family had always lived there – when it was still called the Dutch East Indies. In the period 1985 to 1987 Edith lived and worked in Indonesia, to get a grip on where she stood.

Her investigations were necessary. She tried to forget everything she learned at the art academy, being convinced that she would never be able to bridge four centuries of painting. What lacked her, was affinity with the history of Dutch art. Or was here basis too diverse, too ambiguous? She started to look for (new) connections she had lost due to the circumstances. She looked for them in the popular cultur that in Indonesia still had its right of place in society. She was convinced that her identity was hidden somewhere in this folk culture. Edith plunged into the Javan and Balinese cultures (which are akin) – and experienced it as a relief to live and work in a (genuine) multicultural society. Since these years she uses the iconography of Javan/Balinese culture in her own work, applying all sorts of materials that fascinate her to give substance to her own pictorial language, such as pieces of batic fabric, palm leaf, buffalo leather, etc.

Edith made use of the freedom she had obtained in the Netherlands, the freedom which at the same time confronted her with being an outsider in the Indonesia from befor the ‘Reformasie’. For the fact that she applied etnographic images, and took them out of their context on solely artistic grounds, was not always accepted. She landed with both feet on the ground. Bang!

Edith realised she was also a western artist who occupied herself with the formal aspects of her craft, often unrelated to the content, and based on experiments. She now knew that her frame of reference was two-sided. From that moment onward, by way of a statement, she appropriated the Balinese poleng motive, to define herself in a no man’s land between two extremes. This poleng motive, consisting of black and white blocks, symbolizes cosmic unity, and is often used in Balinese sacred fabrics. The poleng motive keeps cropping up in her work – also with a wink at the Netherlands, a society which is divided into blocks as well: you have to fit into one of those, like in a pigeon-hole, to be able to be who you are. This is part and parcel of Dutch culture.

Now Edith has come to the point where she chooses a material (pictorial element) with a globalizing character: RICE – a choice originating from her own (East Indian) culinary culture, and besides world food number one.

Rice is nourishing (fysically as well as spiritually), rice is transparant, rice has its own structure and can take on all sorts of different forms. Rice, to Edith, is an excellent material, allowing her to express all facets of life. Besides it bears a relation to the goddess of fertility from Javan mythology, Dewi Sri, who has figured in her work for many years. She explores this relation in depth and looks for associations with other cultures. But she also looks for links with the world here and now, so that her art also enters a dialogue with her own time. Especially in Indonesia her expositions provoke a lot of debate during the “Artist Talks”.

Flowers are also elements Edith makes use of on a regular basis – flowers, which are always linked up with rituals.

In the beginning she more or less built her compositions, but this process has changed under the influence of her installations. Nowadays she bases her works not so much on the adventure, she determines beforehand which concept ought to be the foundation – literally and metaphorically. This often points her to photography, but also to new media.

After more than 25 years Edith has embraced the old art of painting, albeit that she applies it in her own way. The putting of layer on layer is not only done with paint, but with all sorts of materials. The different schools in the history of western arts have also found a place in her work, like, for instance, pointillism – but with a wink at the Aboriginals. Meditation during the process leads to depth.

As an artist balancing on the crossroads of extremes (East and West) she feels most at home in a world without borders. The grey area in between she now sees as her homeland, her frame of reference, an equilibrium of black and white. This way she is all over the place, not confined by any borders!