Yvonne Westra: Magical Artistic Visions

Yvonne with one of her artworks ’Villa Westerhout’.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs I am surprised to discover how many of our local artists and art lovers haven't yet been to visit artist Yvonne Westra at the Ngongotahā Village studio gallery she shares with her partner the Surrealist painter Paul Nicolai.

When you do you’re in for a real treat as you’re shown around the very modern Art Box Gallery and studio behind their residence.

At the gallery, opened in 2007, you will see a bounty of artwork and be amazed as I was by this unique treasure trove of art .

Exposed, as we so often are, to New Zealand artstyle, design and motifs it is always interesting and refreshing to see links with the European art heritage being executed with so much finesse and with such passion locally.

Yvonne’s art can be described as magic realism. The genre of art and photography into which Yvonne’s work fits goes back to the 1920s.

While her work may be placed in the genre of magic realism, she says, “I don’t actually set out to make magic realistic images. This is just what comes out of me. Am I a mystic? No.”

The image Villa Westerhout was reconstructed from several photographs of an old mansion in Alkmaar, Holland. In the process of reconstructing it, Yvonne  altered its perspective to increase its sense of unease.

She says that her definition of magic realism, applied to her work, is " any picture that makes the real look unreal - it may be something out of place in an ordinary scene, something which does not quite fit, a sort of twist in reality. It can also be an image of a place that is too ’clean’, too perfect and too ordinary.

She also describes her work as "virtual photography" because her images show an alternative reality from everyday objects and can suddenly appear fantastic even though they are made from photographs of real places.

Yvonne says that, "photography for me is the ’underpainting’ of my work".

"My images often start with a photograph of a place - which I see as an empty stage.

"I set the scene with fragments of other photographs, building on the essence of what I felt at the original place.

"While some of my images have started from a memory, like a half-remembered picture in a children’s book, most have grown from the desire to fill this photographic stage - to create a more personal, perfected reality.

She tells me that rather than having an idea or vision of what the final image should look like, and finding photographs in her collection that fit it, the process is more like discovering the meanings of the photographs in her head.

She can spend many months on one image, despite Photo Shop’s speed. This is a process that takes time.

Yvonne was a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards in 2010 and 2011. Her work is part of the Wallace Art Trust Collection and can be found in other collections around New Zealand and in Australia. 

The Artbox gallery and studio entranceway.

I thoroughly recommend to anyone interested in art that they call in to discover the Artbox Gallery and studio on the main road through Ngongotahā Village.

When we find something extra special in art, most of us, by inclination, just have to share it.

This is a must see for anyone interested in the visual arts and a wonderful experience.

The trip over makes a pleasant art excursion when you continue on to Rotorua and visit Glenn Mc Leary’s stunning Red Spot Gallery and Kristian Lomath and friends at the Art Expo studio gallery.  Both galleries are in the city centre.

Go to http://www.artboxgallery.co.nz/  to see more of Yvonne’s art. Click on Contact to see The Artbox Gallery.

You can arrange a visit by emailing her at yvonne@aura.co.nz 

by Pete Morris (August, 2012).

Pete Morris is an occasional painter and an art lover. He is a freelance writer with a particular interest in promoting the visual arts in Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty.