Montana State professor emeritus brings neon storytelling to Aug. 27 exhibition

BOZEMAN - Willem Volkersz finds that inspiration strikes while he rummages through secondhand shops.

He and his wife sift through drinking glasses, postcards and completed paint-by-numbers paintings. They have amassed roughly 100 such paintings, which have become the foundation of Volkersz's art exhibited in 60 galleries and museums around the world. The award-winning artist creates paint-by-numbers-like pieces, combining them with found objects and glowing neon tubes to represent memories from his life.

"I'm telling the stories of my life, but I leave enough room for the museum or gallery goer to interpret them," said Volkersz, a professor emeritus in the School of Art at Montana State University. "I'll get comments like, 'Oh, I collected those' or 'I remember those from my youth.' It brings people back to memories of their own lives."

Volkersz will capture many of his stories in a retrospective display held from Aug. 27 through Oct. 2 in the Helen E. Copeland Gallery at MSU, located on the second floor of Haynes Hall. Visitors can see "Faith in Numbers" from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. The gallery will host an artist reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, which is free and open to the public.

The exhibition includes 21 works in a variety of mediums, from graphite and paint for portraits of Vincent Van Gogh - whose work entranced young Volkersz while he was growing up in the famous Dutch artist's homeland - to neon tubes that are heated and shaped into his designs. One neon figure, titled "Arrival in New York Harbor," takes the shape of Volkersz himself as he points toward something in the distance. The piece is based on his family's emigration from the Netherlands to the U.S., he said.

Fourteen-year-old Volkersz, his mother and two of his five siblings pointed in awe at the Statue of Liberty as they pulled into New York Harbor in 1953. They had traveled by boat from the Netherlands, deciding to leave the country in the aftermath of World War II. During the war, Volkersz's family harbored Jewish people fleeing German forces, and they survived the Hunger Winter famine in 1944-45 by eating cattle feed and tulip bulbs.

Volkersz wanted to relive the moment he arrived in New York and decided to reference a paint-by-numbers illustration he found online of the harbor and Statue of Liberty, adding neon and a stack of suitcases at the base of the piece.

Suitcases have become a meaningful icon within his life and work, he said. In his permanent installation in the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, he commemorated his elementary school classmates who died during the Holocaust with 183 wooden suitcases. Suitcases have also become a symbol of travel and adventure for the artist, who has hitchhiked across the U.S. and worked in Spain and Iceland. Volkersz said he always had a suitcase resting beneath his chair as he visited schools across Montana, as well, speaking with prospective art students on behalf of MSU's School of Art in the College of Arts and Architecture.

Volkersz taught at MSU for 16 years and served as director of the School of Art for six years. His art is also a permanent part of campus - the work "Home on the Range" is installed in Gaines Hall, though the piece is currently under repair, as part of a statewide program bringing art to public buildings. Volkersz first joined the university as a visiting artist in the '70s and displayed his work in the same gallery that now holds "Faith in Numbers." This exhibition marks 50 years since his first at MSU.

"It's like a homecoming," he said.