Leslie Boonekamp

I am a Melbourne-based fine artist with an international exhibition history spanning Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany — and a working life devoted entirely to making things that matter.
For two decades I worked as a site-specific sculptor and muralist. Then I picked up a brush and started again.
My paintings are built in the Flemish tradition — layer upon transparent layer of oil on marine ply, each glaze revealing something the last one concealed.
But the images begin in philosophy, not technique.
The Displacement Series draws on Camus, Baudrillard, and the Japanese concept of mono no aware — the bittersweet awareness that all things pass. Objects of childhood adrift in open water. A life jacket. A small stuffed toy. The weight of what gets left behind.
The Absurdist Series takes Magritte, Beckett, and Schrödinger into impossible landscapes — inflatable flamingos in Antarctica, rubber ducks in flooded Parisian streets. The incongruity is deliberate. So is the straight face. The absurd, properly rendered, tells more truth than realism ever could.
Each painting is accompanied by an original poem — not explanation, but echo. Another way into the same image.
My credo: the image should be so dominant that technique beco...

Leslie Boonekamp — Curriculum Vitae
Born: 1953, Mount Gambier, South Australia
Lives and works: Melbourne, Australia
Education

Stads Akademie, Maastricht, Netherlands — Fine Art
Curtin University, Western Australia — Bachelor of Arts (Contemporary Art)
Charles Sturt University — Master of Arts
MA, Teaching English as Another Language

Biography
Born in Mount Gambier, South Australia, Leslie Boonekamp emigrated to the Netherlands with his family at the age of ten. He subsequently lived and worked across the Netherlands, England, South Korea, and Australia, returning permanently to Melbourne, where he now works from a home studio.
Professional Practice

Approximately 20 years as a self-employed site-specific artist working in sculpture and large-scale murals
Currently developing two major bodies of work in oils on marine ply

Current Bodies of Work

The Absurdist Series — oil on marine ply
The Displacement Series — oil on marine ply

Languages

English, Dutch, German, French

Exhibitions and Commissions in Australia

2022-23 Herring Island Gallery, South Yarra
2022 Old Paper Mill Gallery, Geelong
2022 Port of Sale Art Gallery, Sale
2013 Beth Hulme Gallery, Fitzroy
2012 Beth Hulme Gallery, Fitzroy
2004 Gallery New Quay, Docklands
2003 Thierry B. Contemporary Art Gallery, Melb.
2002 Thierry B. Contemporary Art Gallery, Melb.
Commissioned Work

2003 Flinders Wharf Apartments (Vic)
Grosvenor Hotel, St Kilda East (Vic)
Royal Arcade (Vic)
Van Handel Residence, Toorak (Vic)
Colombo's Restaurant (Vic)

2002 Man Mo Restaurant (Vic)
Medici Restaurant (Vic)
Nooya Restaurant (Vic)
Sakura Restaurant (Vic)
Custom House Restaurant (Vic)

2001 Westminster Lace, Sydney (Vic)
Lotus Bar, South Yarra (Vic)
Gillon Constructions (Vic)
Young World, Richmond (Vic)
Hokka Hokka Restaurant (Vic)
Stokehouse, St Kilda (Vic)

2000 Westminster Lace, Fountain Gate (Vic)
Planet Café, Fitzroy (Vic)
Medusa Apartments, Elwood (Vic)

1999 Wild Bill's Saloon Ba...