Lieke was born in Holland in 1942, where she spent her early childhood before emigrating to Australia in 1950.
She was educated in Melbourne, then undertook a five-year interior design course at the RMIT and worked briefly for the Australian Government. In 1965 she decided to visit Europe, working in London, Spain and Holland, and it was during this visit that she began to paint.
She moved permanently to St Ives in 1969, initially working as a picture framer until, with the encouragement of Douglas Portway, she started to paint seriously, and in 1970 was elected a Member of the Penwith Society of Arts. In 1984 she was able to give up picture framing to focus full time on her career as an artist.
Inspired by the ever-changing patterns and colours of west Cornwall’s coastal landscape and sea, by the myriad shapes and patterns of shifting sands and the rhythmic movement of the ocean, Lieke Ritman’s semi-abstracted works are celebrated for their intuitive engagement with ‘place’. Simple compositions, textural mark-making and a tranquil palette are the hallmark of her quietly beautiful paintings and prints.
