I visit her at home in one of Amsterdam’s historical canal houses, where she explains to me her personal manifesto that epitomises the powerful vision of her art. A statement so important to her that it graces the cover of her autobiography. “If people ask me ‘Is that art?’ Then I say it might not be definable as art for everybody, I just do it this way. I deliver the visual image. Somebody asked me once how I would describe my art. My art is not recognisable as such, is that clear?”

As I ponder this thought I wonder where the passion to develop and express herself as an artist was conceived. She grew up in a small town in the county’s south, as one of six children. Her father was a composer from whom she learned to sing and perform for an audience from an early age. “When my dad wanted people to hear his latest composition he would invite a couple of friends over to listen. There was a piano at home and I would join in the occasion. That’s where I got used to people hearing my voice. I also loved going with my dad when he was performing at concerts. I was extremely proud of my him, I was absolutely a daddy’s girl. I really admired him from head to toe, I wanted to be just like him.”

After completing the first part of her studies at St.Joost Art Academy, Moniek headed to Brussels for an internship with costume designer Yan Tax. “I first studied sculpture and then switched to fashion because I liked illustration and film. Nowadays that’s called multi-media. I graduated with a full-length 16mm film, that’s something more significant than just making a small video.” Soon after, she began performing in various theatre productions while studying at the Amsterdam Conservatorium, completing the second part of her studies at age 27.

I ask her what she thinks about today’s students being advised to specialise themselves in one area, since she herself is broadly educated. “I think it’s complete nonsense to focus purely on one thing. You should only specialise yourself when you need to. In my opinion, if you don’t know certain fundamental skills, where do you depart from? Some people just jump into life and say things, but they don’t know anything about the broader perspective of life. I know it’s very old fashioned as everyone uses a computer nowadays, but I still think handwriting is the proof of your character. I can tell from an autograph what kind of person I have in front of me. I can see if he’s a listless loser or if it’s someone with a strong personality.”

Politicians are not in her favour at the moment, with the government’s decision to impose massive budget cuts across all art and cultural institutions in The Netherlands. She shakes her head in remorse. “I’m really furious about the cuts they’re making. It’s a cultural impact that knows no mercy. It’s revenge on creativity. They don’t want people to think differently, so they eliminate anything that might encourage people to do so. They want people to sit in their chairs, watch television and enjoy their social security. In Amsterdam it’s going to be really nasty for artists.”

Moniek has been married several times in her life and describes love as something that just happens to you. Her opinion about marriage is quite unique, “I always say; either you marry often or you don’t marry at all. I’m definitely going to marry once again. I think it’s such nonsense and a completely unnecessary activity. I mean you stand in front of a celebrant, because that’s what the law requires you to do, and this complete stranger declares You are now husband and wife. I mean, we were already that before, I didn’t change gender did I?”

A sad glow suddenly comes into her eyes as Moniek tells me her chance on marrying once again will be small as she has phase four lung cancer. Her sarcastic yet semi-serious way of dealing with the illness shows me another side of her. “Half of the people discover they have lung cancer when they’re already in phase four, which I’m in. Those are the hopeless cases with no chance of being cured. I didn’t realise it was this severe until other people started to worry about me. The reality hit me because of the people around me. I’m glad I don’t have any children. I never wanted any, not for myself at least. Don’t get me wrong, I love kids, but I can’t deal with the responsibility of having one of my own. I don’t know how long l have to live. It’s kind of a pain in the ass when it comes to planning, but I’m an optimist so I think it will take a while. I’m not fighting against cancer, I don’t see it like that. You can do chemo therapy but that’s chemo therapy, it’s not going to battle. If I die I don’t want a sentence like She fought fiercely or something stupid like that said about me.

I ask Moniek to share some words of advice with me and she answers: “Well I’ve been guiding my niece for many years now, and I always scream at her You have to be radical! RADICAL!”.