Donna Van Bogaert

Artist Statement

That creativity is a philosophy of life is something I have always sensed intuitively. Later I came to believe that it is also an innate drive. As creativity drives art, I find them both beyond conventional definition and constantly evolving.

The drive and ultimate voice of art seems to derive from an exploration and synthesis of all our complete, diverse and distinctly personal experiences, unique chemistry, and developed skills. I believe everyone has the essential makings of an artist. The belief that a spiritual well fills the need to express that which cannot be expressed any other way—the insatiable need to create, to express, to convey, to touch, to be heard and seen and understood. These are the things that push some from potential to realization.

For me, art is the exploration of life’s mysteries and meaning. The truth I see. Those things I see, or feel, or sense clearly. At the same time, my work is the examination and emergence of provocative ideas— the resonance of cellular memory— visual music.

I never decided to be an artist. I was. I don’t remember ever not knowing this about myself. At an early age, I was a guide for others who did not understand creativity, could not see the colors I did, and were not able to imagine the visual world as a fluid canvas where light, seasons, weather, and man constantly edit what we see.

Mine is an intimate relationship with color and line. My sense of color closely aligns with a natural ability to hear harmonic structure in music. Colors are rich chords of hue. The tones and values I see and imagine are complex. My memory and sensitivity to color is acute. And, I cannot imagine life being worth living without it.

Then, there is line. Heavily influenced by a background in calligraphy and deep attraction to Japanese prints, I impose exercises in shaping through building and blending shapes—but inevitably, I return to the sculpting properties of line—it’s ability to interpret the world through linear networks of diverse personality that translate what we see into patterns and designs.

How I have chosen subject matter has been driven by both intellect and emotion. I finished my college art career painting portraits and some commission landscapes. When I committedly returned to painting 20 years later, I was seeking a way to speak about a great transition in my life. I sought solace in creating that which represented beauty and serenity. I was inspired by the power, and magnificence being amid and expressing what I felt in painting outdoors and capturing what I saw in landscapes.

These are places or views that move me. I am rarely interested in depicting architecture. As I have grown beyond that new beginning 19 years ago, landscapes continue to move me emotionally but my interest has shifted a more philosophical need to see what is live and organic. In a world that is increasing complex and with man’s footprint rarely missing, I need to see the elemental nature of the places I paint. Like stripping an old painted chair to the bare wood, I want to see and experience the essence of my subject.

Many pieces I create have an autobiographical aspect. They represent people, places, symbols, and emotions that speak to my journey. The seasons of my life have been marked by both artistic silence and highly expressive periods. Sometimes my artistic voice shifts mediums. Painting took a long hiatus while I sang and wrote. In my current season, I am synthesizing a lifetime of influences, exposure, and experience. I am reinventing myself and engaging in focused exercise in art theory, technique, and exploration of new media.

In recent years, I have moved further into abstraction. The process of reduction and simplification is, I believe, a reaction to the complex and rapid changing world around me. The act of eliminating, searching for essence, and bringing visual order are exercises in paring down the noise, creating sense, and finding some control in a world that too often careens into chaos.

A return to the joy of experimenting and playing with tools, techniques, and subject matter has been liberating. As a researcher in creativity and cognitive preferences, I understand that permitting room for exploration has been responsible for surprising information to be lifted from my subconscious and integrated in a way that can only happen in a flow state. Hence, the art rugs—a way of embracing my farm roots, acknowledging an obligation to create and use art to focus attention on environmental issues, and expanding the idea of what is and makes art.

Mine is a search, a struggle, a drive, an intellectual journey, and a passion. A way of life. The pursuit of which is the greatest adventure and calling of my existence. In sharing my work and story, I hope to open not only eyes to other ways of seeing — but minds and hearts to the importance of art as a chronicler and conscience.