Boukje Elzinga – Biography and Artist Statement – 2015

Biography

Boukje was born in the Netherlands, immigrated with her family to Southern Ontario where they bought and worked a dairy farm. She travelled, became a nurse, met her captain in Vancouver and with his inspiration and support obtained a BSc. from the University of Guelph and a BFA Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design). Her studio is situated in Hills, in the beautiful mountains of the West Kootenays of British Columbia. Boukje taught figure drawing, oil painting, mixed media and art history at the Kootenay School of Art, at Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson and other places in the region. She was a founding member of the Oxygen Art Centre in Nelson, the Arrow Lakes Fine Art (ALFA) Guild in Nakusp and continues to promote local art by serving on the Board of the Hidden Garden Gallery in New Denver.

Her work has been collected in Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK.

Artist Statement – Boukje Elzinga

I have been drawing since I can remember: people, animals, plants, water and its reflections, what I see when I travel, buildings, objects, and ideas. Often when I am sitting at airports, in restaurants, at meetings, family gatherings, in parks, museums, hospitals, I quickly sketch what is around me in pen and ink and watercolour. Back in the studio I mix pigments, various oils, minerals spirits, sometimes varnishes and wax and blend these onto wood or canvas to create a three dimensional illusion – to me this is magic.