Born and raised in Leamington, Ontario in 1954, Ulbe Hoekstra was born to Dutch parents who immigrated to Canada in the 1950s. Each year a birthday card arrived from Ulbe’s aunt who resided in Holland, and featured the work of a MC Escher, a Dutch artist known for his mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.

Ulbe’s family lived in a village just 40-km from where MC Escher worked – Leeuwarden (Northern Holland). Ulbe had not realized that these pictures were gradually penetrating his conscious and setting a platform for his work that he would start to produce.

Optical art and double imagery had been of interest to Ulbe since the birthday cards and he played with the idea of a light box for about 20 years in his head before deciding to do something with the concept. He started on a prototype that went through various remodelings over a 10-year period. Six years ago Ulbe picked up an MC Escher book and kept going back to the triangular tessellation and interpolation, the use of concave and convex shapes and integrating these illusions into his own ideas. He decided to finish that piece that he had been working and now The Coffee Table was finished and can be seen in the show.

Ulbe has continued to explore different artists work and finds inspiration from artists as diverse as DaVinci and Caravaggio, to Dali and Picasso and more recently WeiWei and Chihuly. All of these artists enabled him to continue to explore visual distortion and line development. With lights and mirrors he made an infinity box which he then integrated into other pieces he has produced. Contrary to all the technical difficulties, hiding the light cord and the fixtures always proves a challenge, Ulbe has really found a medium he feels comfortable working in.

An upcoming exhibition at The Arts Station in Fernie will showcase six completed pieces which Ulbe sees as both design and functional art that can be incorporated into people’s homes with ease. They also are intended to create a visual statement; impact and distraction, cause and effect. Some artists seek attention from the work they produce, Ulbe’s pieces are definitely attention seeking, the polar opposite of Ulbe himself. The name of the show, A Parallax View, encompasses what Ulbe hopes the viewer will experience – observing the same object from two parallel but different viewpoints.
You may have already seen one of Ulbe’s pieces that have been on display in Freshies. The show will have some similar pieces but also new ideas and works and will run from May 1 to May 26.

Please join Ulbe at his first solo show opening reception on Thursday, May 1 at 7 p.m.

The Arts Station

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