Artist Conversation: Willem Volkersz | The View from Here: A 25-Year Retrospective

Montana-based artist Willem Volkersz (b. 1939) is a significant contemporary artist known for his neon and paint-by-number-style installations. He was a pioneer in the use of neon in art and developed early and sustaining loves for photography, travel, American roadside culture, Americana, and Folk and Visionary Art.
Volkersz came to the United States from Holland in 1953, after the devastation of World War II, and brought with him a rich history that is reflected in his works of art. Volkersz has often said that he has an immigrant’s fascination with America, and as a teenager, he began hitchhiking and driving throughout the American West, camera in hand. He has lived in Montana since 1986 and his first museum exhibition in Montana took place here at Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art in 1988. The artworks he produced over the past 25 years draw upon the artist’s eight decades of life experience. They touch upon his early life in Holland under Nazi occupation, his immigration to America, and his current life in the Western United States. The artworks also suggest the ways these personal experiences and passions connect to wider social issues of enduring relevance for everyone.
Volkersz studied art and architecture at the University of Washington before earning an MFA in painting at Mills College in Oakland, CA. After teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute for 18 years, he went to Montana State University-Bozeman in 1986 to direct the School of Art and teach until his retirement in 2001. His work has been featured in 46 solo exhibitions and in over 200 group shows in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, China, and Taiwan. He is the recipient of many awards, including a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, grants from the Mellon Foundation and Gottlieb Foundation, and a 2020 Montana Governor’s Arts Award. He has been a visiting artist and lecturer at almost 100 institutions in the United States, Canada, Europe, and China.
This exhibition is organized by the Missoula Art Museum (MAM). This exhibition travels throughout the Northwest through 2024 to the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings, SD; Boise Art Museum, ID; Missoula Art Museum, MT; Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University in Salem, OR; the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, MT; and Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art in Great Falls, MT.
Exhibitions at Paris Gibson Square Museum of Arts are supported in part by the Montana Arts Council, a state agency funded by the State of Montana, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding for exhibition programs such as Montana Conversations is provided by Humanities Montana through grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ United We Stand Initiative, Montana’s Cultural Trust, and private donations. Montana Arts Council and Humanities Montana are funded in part by coal severance taxes paid based upon coal mined in Montana and deposited in Montana's cultural and aesthetic projects trust fund. Additional funding is provided by museum members and the citizens of Cascade County, Davidson Family Foundation, D.A. Davidson, Montana Credit Union, First Interstate Bank, an anonymous donor, Hotel Arvon, and Kelly’s Signs & Design. Special project funding by Gordon McConnell and Johnson Madison Lumber Company.
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