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About Laurens

Painter Laurens Boersma (Oosterwierum, Friesland, 1957 is graduated cum laude in 1997 from the Art Academy ’Minerva’ in Groningen, The Netherlands. Meanwhile he has been active as an artist since then, during which time he has devoted himself primarily to painting. Undaunted perseverance in combination with true love for his profession have resulted in masterpieces full of conviction. From 2021 on Boersma lives and works in France. 

Impressionism

In the twenty-five years that Boersma has been painting, his work has undergone many developments. Initially he painted in an impressionist style. Like the impressionists, the artists of the Barbizon School and the Haagsche School, he preferred to paint on location, ‘en plein air’. Just like his great predecessor Monet, Boersma was mesmerised by the atmosphere of the landscape under the influence of light. Rain, cold and inclement wind, nothing could stop the artist from painting. He painted in the Northern Netherlands and occasionally in France.

About ten years ago, Boersma changed his approach. He no longer painted exclusively on location. Outside, however, he continued to search for usable motifs. He continued to taste the atmosphere at scenic locations of varying character, while making photographs, sketches and watercolours. However, he started to create his paintings in the concentrated quiet of his studio. His paintings became more abstract as a result. They contained fewer anecdotes, less explicit details that referred to a place. It also meant that his canvases became larger. The process of abstracting led to works of a monumental character.

Boersma’s work becomes his own with the Waterland series, which he started in 2013. It consists of oil paintings, photographs, watercolours and drawings. Lands in the Veenkoloniën are the inspiration for these works. Tracks left behind by heavy agricultural machinery fill with water. In this water, the clouds are reflected and the light is reflected. Water and land come together in the little pools formed and enter into a connection. The artist fell under its spell.

Master of the material

Starting with the Waterland series, Boersma makes increasingly idiosyncratic idealisations of the landscape. Initially, they are still the product of observation, but they are modified without mercy during the painting process; the artist allows himself to be led by what happens on his canvas. Boersma gets an eye for the laws and painterly possibilities of each individual image. Stylistically, one could call Boersma’s diverse work eclectic. Numerous influences from art history can be recognised in his oeuvre of the last few years. Some paintings betray the influence of Romanticism, others of Magic Realism, Expressionism and Abstract Expressionism. Art lovers will see traces of Isaac Levitan, Piet Mondrian, Edvard Munch and Mark Rothko in his work. In short, you could say that Boersma idealises and distorts the perceived and experienced landscape at will. He does not, however, do that according to a method or a repetitive recipe. The final form of a painting is determined by ‘what the painting needs to complete… and by what it needs to give it its own soul’, says Boersma. It is remarkable that the artist manages to achieve a satisfactory harmony in each painting, however much his paintings may differ from one another. According to the jargon of the great Karel Appel, you could say that in recent years Boersma has become a convincing master of the subject.

Since 1998, Boersma has been exhibiting his paintings of landscapes regularly, in the northern Netherlands and sometimes on the other side of the country, as in Middelburg in 2011. Meanwhile, there is enough interest in his work, also abroad. This came to a head in 2013 with a solo exhibition at Galerie Lindern in Niedersachsen. A year later he exhibited in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. And more followed.

The artist works closely with Galerie Beeldkracht. Since 2006 he has been a regular participant in the gallery’s permanent group exhibition. In 2014 and 2017 there were already solo exhibitions of his work at Gallery Beeldkracht. Now in 2021, another solo exhibition of Boersma can be admired. Together with the artist, the gallery has made a selection of his work from the last five years. You might call it his farewell exhibition to the Netherlands, as the artist has been living and working in France since April 2020, where he has bought an authentic 18th-century Normandy farmhouse with a lot of land. Steadily, the artist is transforming it into his own art paradise. We look forward to seeing you at his exhibition, which can be visited by appointment on Thursdays, Fridays or Saturdays between 10 and 18 hours.