JOKE BUURSMA

ART QUILTS - QUILT ART - TEXTILE ART

I started working with textiles when I moved from The Netherlands to Ireland (Co.Waterford) in 1996. It started as a hobby, but gradually it grew to a  real passion for fabric and colour. I wanted to express my design ideas in textile wall hangings, like painters do in their paintings. Although I worked for many years as a librarian and later as a consultant in curriculum design for vocational education, my artistic life began when I took evening classes in painting and drawing at that time. When I discovered fabric and thread as a medium, a whole new world opened  up and ideas poured forth. The sewing machine has become my brush and pencil; thread and fabric have become my palette for images set on various backgrounds.

Colour and shape are for me the most important design elements. My medium is a pieced, layered and stitched art form in which surface design plays a most important role. I mainly use a mix of self dyed and commercially printed cotton fabrics, but occasionally I use silk, linen and man-made material as well.  I work with various surface techniques, for example piecing, appliqueing, dyeing, painting, stamping, and discolouring. From a distance my work often resembles a painting, but as the viewer approaches, the stitching detail beckons and invites even closer inspection.

My work references a sense of place derived from places which affected me. In the course of the last couple of years I have been working on pieces alluding to the Adobe architecture in Mali (West Africa), South Africa's nature, and in other pieces to the past of Ireland, France, Spain, and Syria.
My wall hangings have been shown in many national and international exhibits in Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Denmark, Belgium, Germany, and The Netherlands.

In the past ten years I have won several awards at national and international exhibits.

I had two solo exhibitions in the course of 2014 and a 'two person' exhibition in May / June in 2017.

I am a "Juried Artist Member" of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) of the USA.

If you would be interested in purchasing a piece, please send an e-mail to jokebuursma@gmail.com, or, ring me at 00353 51 645091.

Joke (pronounced Yoka) Buursma,
​March 2018