ABOUT ME

My name is Maxime van Dongen and I’m from the Netherlands. I was born on the 17^th of January in 1998. I grew up having two older brothers, a father and a lovely mother. This resulted in me being quite the tomboy back in the day. I even wanted to play soccer then, which I still do to this day.

Besides kicking the ball and scoring goals, the rest of my spare time I was drawing, tinkering, decorating. Always trying to create something new, something extraordinary. Thus, when I left high school, it was no surprise I wanted to design, draw and decorate.

Therefore, I ended up studying Furniture Design at ‘Koning Willem I College’ in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This study taught me how to make a piece of furniture from scratch, with a particular practical approach. This includes, designing, calculating, finding materials and eventually making the pieces of furniture.

Additionally, one of the highlights of this study was that in the spring of 2018 I was chosen to show off my furniture ‘The Captured Perseverance’ on the design week in Milan.

Although I learned a lot, I mostly had to alter some of my designs, because my arty style was not always as well received by the teachers as I‘d hoped. I was then told to stick to the rules in the most classic way possible: “That’s how we do things here and that’s it.” I felt the focus was more on learning the craft itself than on the process of creating designs.

Furthermore, I was a girl in a man’s world. I felt the pressure of people when I was busy making my furniture. Maybe, because in the meantime I had shed most of my tomboyish manners and acted more as a girl. And maybe they just weren’t used to the sight of seeing a girl sawing pieces of wood in half. I didn’t always feel as comfortable as I would have liked.

However, I finished the study in my own way and I’m looking forward to make the next step. I know what I like to do and that is drawing, designing, making, creating, photographing, editing and I’m ready to show what I’ve got.