Barbara Boekelman

About

Barbara Boekelman is an artist from Amsterdam who makes large-scale oil and charcoal paintings that layer contradiction (social, historical, personal) beneath vivid, reworked surfaces. Her work has been exhibited in New Zealand, the Netherlands, and Germany, including being a finalist and prize recipient in the BBA Artist Prize in Berlin. She divides her time between Christchurch, New Zealand and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Statement

Painting is my best friend. I tell her all my secrets and then we hide them together. My large-scale works grow through continual reworking. I draw, paint, obscure, wipe away, and draw and paint over again. The layers build as one thought leads to another, an ongoing chain of doubt, discovery, and wonder. Figures and objects surface only to be buried again, until the accumulation of layers makes the painting appear more abstract than it really is. This slow drift toward abstraction is a consequence of staying with a subject even when it is uncomfortable. I don't aim for conclusions. I prefer the space where things remain open and unresolved. My subjects mostly emerge from what unsettles me: religion, greed, inequality, animal cruelty and the contradictions of human behaviour. I am drawn to themes that continue to press back and refuse to resolve, forcing me to question, research and revisit. The unease shapes the choices I make: colour combinations grate and glow at the same time. Compositions feel off-kilter, yet somehow hold. I am drawn to the moment where imperfection tips into its own kind of rightness. I decide on a title before I begin a painting. Like the work itself, the title is meant to raise questions rather than provide answers. Instead of an explanation, it is a guide. It directs me while I paint and later, for the viewer, it suggests a way of looking at the painting while still leaving space for doubt and multiple readings. I push myself to transform uncomfortable themes into works one wants to look at and spend time with. Not as a solution, but as a way of holding tension. The paintings are painterly and conceptually grounded. They live in ambiguity, resist clarity, and find their energy in contradiction. My first ambition is always a painting that draws you in and holds you there. If it also nudges the viewer to sit with their own thoughts about the subject, that is everything I could hope for.