Karen Boersma

Lines are the primary building blocks of my drawings, paintings and objects . Each new work starts with me leading a line across the surface to be painted or drawn on. Other lines emerge with one single reaction, responding to the first line, so that capricious works are developed, leading to the most diverse revelations and possibilities of interpretation.
The way people deal and interact with each other is one of the most important aspects in my work: interpersonal contacts and day-to-day behaviour as well as social space of a community in a political, social and natural context - these aspects are all lines from an invisible network, that reflects itself in my abstract compositions.
The materials and instruments with which I work are not always “conventional”. As basis for my paintings, I often use woven materials, precisely because of their own mechanical pattern or structure. It is this mechanical pattern that is then connected or intertwined with the spontaneous painted lines. Thus the basis links itself - another definition of lines – with often unconscious environmental impressions.
My proceedings are not finished with “the final brush stroke”. For me, the viewers’ interpretations are like surprising gusts of air, which give additional dimensions to my work and make the lines continue. At this point, the communicative effect arises, or as to refer to Roger Ballen: “ If you look around, there are wires anywhere. What is their meaning? Connection? Communication? But wires are also the things which wrap or tie up ideas or people. And there is the formal interpretation of the wire; that one which is drawn in a drawing or runs through a painting”.


** Please also check my ongoing toilet series on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/karen.boersma.9/media_set?set=a.103998353013006.8409.100002085256891&type=3
**

AKI, Enschede, NL

A Selection.
*****
2018: Brooklyn Art Library, New York, USA. (Traveling U.S. and Canada)
2017: Art Salon, Berlin, Germany.
Helmerhoek, Enschede, The Netherlands.
2016: Weddingmarkt, Berlin, Germany.
2015: SWOK, Oldenzaal, The Netherlands.
Kinderwunsch Zentrum an der Oper, München, Germany.
2014: Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, Canada.
Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany.
2013: Kreuzberg Pavillon, Berlin, Germany.
Studio 75, Berlin, Germany.
2012: ROC Twente, Almelo, The Netherlands.
2011: Arthouse Tacheles, Berlin, Germany.
2010: Gallery Dessers- Beeck, Keerbergen, Belgium.
2009: Dutch Delight, Düsseldorf, Germany.
2008: Streetfestival "Winsstrasse", Berlin, Germany.
2007: Consulate Marijke Amado, Usedom, Germany.
2006: Sidac-studio, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Balenfestival, Enschede, The Netherlands.