New Zealand Art In Belgium – An Interview With
Artist Lieve Bierque

Lieve Bierque is a painter whose work achieved critical recognition in Belgium, the country of her birth. Since she came to live in New Zealand new influences have impacted on her art and instead of having solo exhibitions she now combines with other artists to present to Belgians a broader range of art work produced in New Zealand.

Early art influences in Belgium Lieve cannot remember a time when art was not important to her. Her mother was an artist and art teacher, and from the age of four Lieve was spending time in art museums and painting and playing with colour and shape in her mother’s art workshops, especially those which she ran for children.

At school Lieve had a formal education, not specialising in art, but at tertiary level she attended the Saint Maria Institute in Antwerp, Belgium, and completed a degree of Fine Arts and qualified as a teacher of art. The course was a traditional training in art, including painting, figure drawing, working in three dimensions as in sculpture, and print making.

After graduating she taught art and at the same time studied millinery, three dimensional design and art of drawing, specialising in figure drawing, in evening courses at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

During these years she did a number of free lance design jobs in commercial art, including logos, layouts and drawings for fashion advertisements. With her mother she taught workshops for children, ran a film club for young people, and ran European festivals for children.

Marriage and move to New Zealand While on holiday in Bali she met New Zealander, Gavin Bonnett, and shortly after she married him and moved to Christchurch. They share a love of the beach and a love of art and colour, although Gavin is an electrical engineering coordinator, not a professional artist. Together they have created a home and studio high on the hills above the sea at Sumner where the views of sea, sky and mountain are a constant delight.

As a student Lieve had to complete an assignment for which every day at the same time she had to paint in colour the same area of sky. This heightened her appreciation of the changing colours of the sky. From the windows of their Christchurch home she can view and enjoy a wide vista of sky in all its varying moods.

Teaching art in New Zealand After her arrival in New Zealand Lieve completed teacher training at the Christchurch College of Education, and after teaching for seven years at Burnside High School in Christchurch she is now Head of the Art Department at Christchurch Girls’ High School.

Lieve’s paintings strongly influenced by imagination and memory She creates a semi-realistic world and describes her paintings as semi-abstract, influenced by her Flemish background of surrealism which gives an extra dimension to her work. She has always juxtaposed dreams and reality in her mixed media painting, The result is magic realism.

Dreams, to Lieve, are more challenging than reality. ‘My art’, she says, ‘is an expression of the paradox between living spontaneously within the confines of the imagination, while at the same time developing artistic form. I build colours upon layers of collage using acrylic and ecoline paint and create a three dimensional illusion which draws the viewer into hidden spaces.’

She sees herself when painting as sitting in her own ivory tower reflecting her immediate environment and being influenced by all she has collected. She keeps every piece of paper that is part of her world – magazines, travel tickets, wrappings, packing, newspapers in different languages. Everyone sees different things in the paintings, interpreting images according to their experience.

Art as a journey Lieve believes that art is a journey and changes with the places and people the artist encounters. When she painted in Belgium the colours were sombre with a lot of browns and ochres. She views the past and her life in Belgium as if it were in a glass cube standing safely on a pedestal. She can no longer penetrate it, touch it or make contact with it.

When she first arrived in New Zealand she was enchanted by the landscapes – the different light and shapes. Now her painting is more lively and intense and has a dynamic life.

‘Workbook Pages’ One group of fourteen works, ‘Workbook Pages’, is based on memories, experiences and what she has collected – the Cathedral in Antwerp, Maori rock drawings, and dried rose petals.

Painting 1 – A Workbook Page (Click here for a larger version)

Wherever Lieve travels what she sees influences her work. When she went to Russia what she saw influenced her work in the early eighties. A new influence in her work is rock drawings, both from Maori drawings in caves in New Zealand and rock drawings of Alta Mira in Spain. Their antiquity fascinates her (painting 1).

The close proximity in which people live in big cities and the way their windows show their lives when the lights are lit in the evenings were part of the inspiration for another workbook page (painting 2 – below). The concept of time is inseparable from memories. The need to keep the connection with the earlier life in Belgium is there in the postage stamps, symbols of linkage.

Painting 2 – A Workbook Page (Click here for a larger version)

Memories that influence another workbook page come from her mother’s work as a designer and dressmaker where she used headless, armless mannequins. These are memories from Lieve’s early years. The images go from past to future. From further back in human experience come images of the architecture of the Antwerp Cathedral (painting 3 below).

Painting 3 – A Workbook Page (Click here for a larger version)

There are no set boundaries to the workbook themes, so the paintings spill outside their frames. The use of layered hand-made paper of different quality gives varied texture to the painting.

In 1994 Lieve had an exhibition in Antwerp of some monoprints and some other mixed media work. Those who attended the exhibition showed great interest in her work and questioned where the new influences came from.

First New Zealand art exhibition in Belgium In response to their interest in the New Zealand influences in December/January 1995/6 a further exhibition was mounted -‘Waitaha to Belgium’. It was the first time that New Zealand art was exhibited in Belgium. This very successful exhibition was held at the Generale Bank in Antwerp and was opened by Mr Leask, the New Zealand Ambassador. In addition to Lieve’s painting it featured traditional and modern Maori weaving and carving through the work of three Maori artists from New Zealand – Riki Manuel, carver; Steven Gibbs, painter; and Cath Brown, potter and weaver.

Exhibition of Contemporary New Zealand Painting in Antwerp December/January 1998/9 The exhibition was so successful that another was held in December/January 1998/9, this time featuring contemporary New Zealand art. The artists featured included Dee Copland, printmaker; Grace Voller, a young Maori artist producing Maori-inspired design on glass; Bing Dawe, sculptor; Sheila Wolden, painter; Michael Reed, mixed media artist; Cath Brown, exhibiting Maori weaving and pottery; and Lieve Bierque.

Lieve is working towards a further exhibition of her paintings in New Zealand in 2006.

Watch for chances to see the work of these New Zealand artists and hear news of their progress in teaching other New Zealanders to value, understand and sometimes to create interesting modern artistic works.