NO BOUNDARIES Paintings and Textile Art by Anne Korff and Joke Buursma

Artists Anne Korff and Joke Buursma are both inspired by exotic cultural elements from Africa and the Middle East.

Joke Buursma originally from The Netherlands makes Textile Art. She uses a mix of commercial and hand-dyed fabrics. Her work is mainly figurative. In “No Boundaries” there is a series of five pieces with the zebra as a theme.

During the process of creating the zebras, Joke discovered the stunning African adobe architecture of Mali, hence one of the zebra pieces contains some details of an adobe wall. Other pieces are inspired by cultural elements from Ireland, Syria, and France. In her piece Intercultural Ireland Joke made a connection between Celtic Ireland, Christianity and Islam, because in a relatively short time Ireland has changed to a multi cultural society.

Joke's work has been exhibited not only in Ireland, but also in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France, and the U.K. Her work has been accepted in a number of juried quilt exhibitions, and this year one of her pieces is accepted by the European Art Quilt Foundation and will be part of the exhibition which will travel for two years in a number of EU countries. Two of her pieces (Intercultural Ireland, and, Zebra IV) have been accepted by the RDS Craft Show in Dublin in 2009, which is proof of excellence of workmanship and design.

Anne Korff’s latest paintings are inspired by visits to Morocco, Tunisia, Andalusia and a recent visit to remote parts in south east Turkey - an area bordering Syria and Iraq. Two aspects struck her in particular: the first being the swamping of traditional life styles and architecture by all the trappings of a western consumer society; the second being the abstract nature of Islamic design and its meditative qualities.

Anne is well known through her work with Tír Eolas a publishing company she founded in 1987. Her illustrations of the archaeology of the Burren and its history led to the publication of a series of guides and maps and, in cooperation with several authors, to The Book of the Burren. In 2007 she had a solo exhibition On the Sea, a series of drawings and paintings based on her numerous trips sailing around the west coast of Ireland in her 29 foot yacht Jade.

This exhibition is a celebration of the beauty of Islamic art as seen by a 'Westerner'. She hopes to encourage the viewer to embrace cultural diversity and the opening of a dialogue that might help build bridges between the Christian and Islamic worlds.

'East meets West' by Anne Korff

'Zebra' by Joke Buursma