THE WORKS OF BARBARA BOEKELMAN

We were able to do something that rarely happens in the art world. In an exclusive interview with Barbara Boekelman, the New Zealand based artist opens up to us and shares, in her own words, her personal journey. As the protege of famed NZ artist Philip Trusttum, it was at their collaborative exhibition in 2022 entitled, "Be More Bold" that we first met Barbara. We have followed her work  closely ever since. Cantabrian Magazine shares the highlights of this rare glimpse inside the oftentimes intricately unknown world of an artist with the Words + Works of Barbara Boekelman.

Have you known from a young age that you wanted to be an artist? Or Was art something that was talked about a lot in your house when you grew up?

From the second I showed the merest interest in drawing and painting, my parents have pushed me toward art making. They supported me in any way they could. Every birthday and Christmas I would get art supplies, they would take me to galleries and drive me to any courses I wanted to take. 

At what age did you start making art?

The first course I took was a life drawing class. I started together with my two best friends when we were 13. From that we went on to painting. Always large scale. Three years later, all three of us were accepted into art school, which was a pretty big deal back then. 

After two years of art school, I dropped out. They wouldn’t let me be the designer that I aspired to be and I wasn’t ready to focus solely on painting. I decided I didn’t want to be an artist. It broke my father’s heart. And mine. I had failed. It took me years to pick up a brush again. 

That must have been quite devastating after having worked toward it since you were so young…

Totally, I had no idea what to do now, so I was quite lost for a while. I went to live abroad for a few years, started and stopped studying French and then finished my search doing a degree in Journalism. For about 20 years I worked in broadcasting in Amsterdam. I worked in many different roles (director, developer, series and executive producer) until I started my own production company. Making TV is hard work and can be stressful at times. I slowly started painting a little again, if only just to keep my sanity.

How did you end up in New Zealand?

My husband is a Kiwi from Christchurch. We met just months before he was supposed to go back home after a few years in Europe. Well, that didn’t happen until 12 years later. He stayed with me in Amsterdam, and it wasn’t before long that we started a family. 

We were very happy living in the city with our two girls. However, it was time to make the move to NZ. Andrew wanted the girls to experience the Kiwi lifestyle and we thought it was important they would get to know his side of the family as well as they did mine. We moved to Sheffield where Andrew started a Peony farm. 

From Amsterdam to Sheffield, from broadcasting to farming. That sounds like quite the change… 

It was very hard at first and I never exactly nailed being a farmer in Sheffield. To continue my career in broadcasting I really should have been in Auckland or Wellington, but those flowers were in the ground on the South Island so that wasn’t an option either. 

I was still painting, but up until then it was more an on-the-side thing. That changed rapidly. Being able to focus more on painting quickly gave me that magical feeling of freedom again and before I knew it, I went back to being my 16-year-old self and painted night and day. In no time I was completely hooked again. This was what I needed to do! Not broadcasting and certainly not farming. In 2020 I went to UC School of Fine Arts. I did my Honours and a year later my MFA. Much to my parents’ delight, I have been a fulltime artist since. 

How do you feel your work sits in the New Zealand art landscape?

My art is not typical New Zealand art. I am not saying that is a good or a bad thing it is just not everyone’s cup of tea. My paintings are large, colourful and expressive. In many cases my subject matter is quite niggly or provocative. In all cases it is something that is of great significance to me. 

Can you tell us a little bit about the process? How do your paintings come to life?

I typically start with a title. Everything I have going around in my head about the particular subject gets a spot on the canvas. At this initial stage it’s all very figurative. That’s when I start my exercise of working, obscuring, bringing back, reworking and hiding again and slowly a composition emerges. It is all about chucking stuff in and then disguising it so as to confuse. I obscure what I find too literal and gradually it becomes what most people would say is an abstract painting. However, to me it is never really abstract. To me, all the initial figures and objects are still visible, even once a painting is finished. Which can be after a month and sometimes even a year. 

There are lots of layers in your paintings. Each layer telling a part of the story?

Yes, that’s a way to see it. Naturally the many layers create a feeling of depth. But there are other reasons for all the hiding and covering and wiping away that I do. One of them is that I hope that people will keep finding new little bits and pieces when they look at my paintings over a longer period. Things they didn’t see at first. A bit like a treasure hunt. Another reason is that I don’t want to force my opinion on a viewer. I don’t actually need or even want them to know what my painting is about at all and where I sit in it with my opinion. 

So you don’t want to be too obvious?

Exactly, there has to be room for interpretation. I feel faces for instance can be real give-aways. My faces are mostly without too much expression, obscured or turned away. If I give a figure a smile, she’s smiling. It is locked in. I rather keep it open. If I don’t give a figure a particular expression, it has a million different expressions. You can take your pick.

The viewer has to make up their own mind?

It’s a bit like reading a book after having seen the movie. What the characters and surroundings look like is planted in your brain by the director and you can’t unsee it now. Your imagination is made redundant. That is why I like to leave things open for interpretation. Besides, why would anyone care about my take on things? It’s about the painting, not the painter. I once sold a painting to someone that saw the most beautiful paradise-like landscape in it. I never told them about the dead bodies that were hiding in their paradise. 

A similar thing happened with ‘Meat’, a piece which had been up in a company’s board room for a year. They would avoid the boardroom when one of their clients, a vegan food company, would come in, because they thought the painting might offend their client. Here I was convinced that everyone would see ‘Meat’ as the statement against the meat industry that it was. 

Your titles play a significant role too it seems?

Yes, it is a bit of a game sometimes. More often than not there is some amount of irony in them. But just not enough to give everything away entirely. Some people will get it and others won’t. Even with ‘Fucking Flowers’, which would seem quite unambiguous as a title, it’s probably not immediately clear to people where I stand on the subject. If you wouldn’t know we have that bloody flower farm, you might think I hated flowers. But I don’t. I love flowers!

What can we expect next?

I hope in the future I can keep confusing people a little bit and raise more questions than provide answers. It is the only way I can justify trying to make a beautiful painting about an ugly theme. Because that is still my aim; to ultimately make a beautiful painting. No matter what it is about, I want it to speak to you. I certainly don’t want you to need to know anything about me or my intentions and opinions before you can enjoy my work. A bit ironic to say in an interview but in a perfect world I think artists should be anonymous.

Links

https://www.barbaraboekelman.com/ 

Follow Boekelman on Instagram @barbaraboekelman_art