Marlou Fernanda reflects on identity, transformation and the quiet power of embracing every season of life.
21 August 2026
For Dutch artist Marlou Fernanda, growth is neither linear nor complete. In ‘A Time for Everything’, her first major museum exhibition, painting, installation, personal archives and participatory storytelling converge to chart a decade of artistic and personal transformation. Organised around the symbolic rhythm of the seasons, the exhibition traces a journey through vulnerability, visibility and self-discovery, revealing how creativity can become both sanctuary and site of renewal. In this conversation, Fernanda reflects on saying goodbye to her alter ego Nu-Nu, inviting audiences into her creative process, and why claiming space begins with becoming more truthful. As one chapter closes and another begins, she considers the enduring relationship between art, faith, memory and the courage to trust the seasons that shape us.
Brendon Bell-Roberts: ‘A Time for Everything’ unfolds through four symbolic seasons of your life and practice. How did you translate time into an exhibition narrative, and what do you hope visitors discover as they move through these chapters of your journey?
Marlou Fernanda: Time has never felt linear to me. It moves like the seasons: returning, repeating, revealing something new each time. A Time for Everything became my way of honouring that rhythm.
The exhibition is not a retrospective in the traditional sense. It is an invitation to walk through the landscape of my inner world. Every room, every painting, every handwritten note belongs to a season of becoming. Spring carries innocence and longing. Summer holds expansion and courage. Autumn asks me to release what once protected me. Winter became the place where silence prepared me for something new.
I wanted people to experience time the way I have experienced it: not as something that passes, but as something that shapes us. Sometimes we think we are standing still, while beneath the surface roots are quietly growing.
More than anything, I hope visitors leave with permission. Permission to trust that their own life also has seasons. That not every chapter needs to be productive. Some chapters are simply preparing the soil for what has yet to bloom.
Your alter ego, Nu-Nu, has been central to your artistic practice, acting as both a protective figure and a vehicle for self-expression. What did creating Nu-Nu allow you to say or become that Marlou Fernanda herself could not, and what did it mean to let her go?
Nu-Nu was not only a character to me. She was a safe place. I realised that later on.
Before I knew how to stand in the world as Marlou, I created someone who could carry the weight for me. She became the language through which I could speak before I found my own voice. Through her, I could be fearless, vulnerable, playful, angry, hopeful. She held emotions that I didn’t yet know how to carry myself. Looking back, I realise she was never hiding me. She was raising me. People often ask whether letting Nu-Nu go felt like losing a part of myself. In truth, it felt like coming home. I no longer needed to meet myself through another face. I could finally stand before the world without armour. When creating this exhibition, I kept in mind that it could be her funeral, but it would also be a celebration. You don’t bury something because it failed. Sometimes you bury something because it fulfilled its purpose.
Throughout the exhibition, claiming space emerges as both a personal necessity and a political act. How has your understanding of visibility evolved over the past decade as a young Black woman, an autodidact, and an artist working across physical and digital spaces?
When I started making work, I wasn’t thinking about visibility. I was trying to survive. Art became the only place where I could breathe without apologising for who I was. Over time I realised that simply existing unapologetically already carries political weight. As a young Black woman, as an autodidact, I often felt that I had to prove that I belonged before I was allowed to create. But belonging cannot be earned. It has to be claimed. Today I think differently about visibility. I no longer want to be seen for the sake of being seen. I want to make spaces where others recognise something of themselves. For me, taking up space is no longer about becoming larger. It is about becoming more truthful and perhaps that is the most radical thing an artist can do.
This exhibition includes not only finished works but also sketches, handwritten notes, and deeply personal material that has never been shown before. What conversations become possible when artists invite audiences into the process rather than presenting only completed works?
I think we have learned to celebrate certainty. Finished works often give the illusion that the artist always knew where they were going. But that has never been my experience. Most of my practice exists in the unknown. The sketches, journals and unfinished thoughts reveal something that paintings alone cannot: doubt, searching, failure, prayer, wonder. I wanted visitors to see that creativity is rarely a straight line. It is a conversation. Sometimes with yourself. Sometimes with God. Sometimes with silence. By sharing the process instead of only the outcome, I hope we remove the pressure to have everything figured out. The process itself is worthy of being witnessed.
Perhaps even more beautiful than the destination.
Though your paintings are celebrated for their vibrant colour and expressive energy, they often carry complex emotional and psychological undercurrents. How do you balance visual exuberance with emotional vulnerability in your work?
I’ve never consciously tried to balance them. Joy and grief have always existed together in my life. Colour became the language through which I could hold both at once. People often describe my work as joyful because of the colours, but colour has never been decoration for me. It is emotion. Sometimes the brightest colours are carrying the heaviest stories. I think hope is most meaningful when it has survived sorrow. That is why my work can feel playful and heavy at the same time. I am not interested in choosing between beauty and pain. I believe beauty often becomes visible because we have walked through pain.
Why is participation important to your practice, and what role do you believe audiences play in completing the work, as visitors are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences through interactive elements and personal storytelling in ‘A Time for Everything’?
I’ve never wanted people to simply look at my work. I want them to encounter themselves.
The interactive parts of the exhibition exist because I believe art becomes alive when it creates dialogue. My story is only the doorway. Once someone enters, the work becomes about them too. When visitors write something, leave a thought behind, or recognise part of themselves in a painting, the exhibition quietly changes. It becomes something I could never have made alone.
In that sense, every visitor becomes a co-author. The exhibition is only complete once another human being brings their own story into the room.
The exhibition coincides with the documentary Los van Nu-Nu, which follows your artistic journey over three years. How has seeing your creative life documented influenced your understanding of your practice, your growth, and the stories you choose to share?
For a long time, I thought I was simply living my life. Watching the documentary made me realise that I had actually been witnessing a transformation. When you’re inside your own journey, growth is almost invisible. You only notice it when you look back. The camera captured moments I had already forgotten: uncertainty, waiting, breakthroughs, tears, quiet victories. It reminded me that transformation rarely happens in one dramatic moment. It happens through thousands of ordinary decisions to keep going. The documentary also made me more intentional about what I share. I no longer feel the need to share everything. I want to share what is true.
Sometimes silence tells the deepest story.
Looking back on ten years of independent practice, this exhibition marks both a milestone and a new beginning. As you close one chapter with ‘A Time for Everything’, what questions, ambitions, or transformations shape the work ahead?
For the first time in my practice, I feel less interested in answers than in surrender. The past ten years were about finding my voice. The next chapter is about listening.
I find myself drawn towards abstraction, installation, performance and creating spaces that people don’t only observe, but inhabit. I want my work to become increasingly immersive: spaces where art, memory, light, sound and presence meet. More than anything, I want to remain teachable. I hope my work continues to become quieter, deeper and more honest. I don’t know exactly where the next season will lead. But I have learned that every season arrives exactly when it is meant to. As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there truly is a time for everything. And perhaps the greatest work of an artist is not controlling time, but learning how to recognise the season they have been given.
This exhibition was on view at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam from 10 October 2025 until 28 June 2026.
