Marie-Louise van Overdijk-Reek originally began her career as a designer and stylist and became co-ordinator of the Dutch Fashion Institute for over ten years. She also acted as president of Intercolor in Paris: the institute and ‘semi- secret society’ made up of fashion and fabric experts and trend-watchers from twenty-three countries. Afterwards, Marie-Louise opened her own international styling office in Amsterdam to provide fashion design and styling for men’s and women’s wear. In addition she forecasted colour concepts for fabric manufactories. Since then, she has been enthusiastically active on a wider terrain. For many years she ran her own business M&L Interiors, Art and Antiques from the famous Maastricht Convent, located at the Vrijthof square in the heart of the city. Marie- Louise succeeded in transforming her passion and love of art into her profession.
Settling in Belgium in the nineties, she specialized in renovation, decoration and interior design. Some of her design projects were Château de Fonteneau (Nivelles, Belgium), Château St. Gerlach (Maastricht, Holland) and Château Crabbenburgh (Ghent, Belgium).
Marie-Louise herself is co-author of the book Living in a Castle, published in 2003. Over the last decades several magazines reported on her international projects and artists. In 2008 Marie-Louise started her contemporary art gallery ML Gallery in the heart of Antwerp in a mansion at the Arthur Goemaerelei.
Since 2014 the gallery has moved to a showroom in Destelbergen near Ghent, opened only by appointment.
From 2016 on ML Gallery has moved to a new place in Oostkerke, near the coast of Belgium, close to Knokke and Bruges. A former farm and its outbuildings give space to expositions and events. In the summer of 2020 the gallery has moved to a bright, contemporary and renovated house in heart of the village of Oostkerke.