A selection of works spanning four decades will be on show at ARCA Amorosa, near Silves, until June 29
Popular Algarve artist Barbara Jane Boulter, also known as BJ Boulter, is exhibiting a special collection starting May 8 (Friday), at the ARCA Amorosa, near Silves and São Bartolomeu de Messines.
Her collection will include artworks ranging from 1985 to recently painted pieces. “I paint people, creatures and places around me. I am inspired to depict the lives of many peoples, as well as elephants, dolphins, birds and other living things that I care about in our extraordinary world,” she refects.
Her powerful passion for creating art has resulted in solo and group exhibitions throughout the Algarve. Barbara Jane Boulter, born in 1945 with English parents in Tanganyika, was always drawing and painting as a child, encouraged by her father, an artist, a published cartoonist and an engineer who built parts of the railways in East Africa.
BJ’s coming of age coincided with Tanganyika’s independence from England, which led to the birth of Tanzania. In 1962, her parents sent her to Saint Martin’s School of Art and Lucie Clayton School of Design in London.
Meanwhile, her family moved to the Algarve, and soon bought and rebuilt a dilapidated little hotel called “The Penguin”, which overlooked Praia da Rocha, in Portimão. Hence, the Algarve became the home she would always return to.
Her mother, Dorothy Boulter, managed the Penguin single-handedly from 1963 until it was sold in 2007. Dorothy died in 2023 at the age of 105. Today, the building that once housed a colourful hotel is unoccupied and teetering once again on a Praia da Rocha clifftop.
With a lust for travel and adventure, BJ visited Hong Kong in 1966. In search of work, she landed a job in the art department on The Sand Pebbles, an Oscar-nominated feature film starring Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen. “I suddenly fell into the perfect career for my skills,” she recalls.
For the next 40 years, she worked as a production designer on hundreds of feature films, documentaries, and commercials all over the world. BJ continually used her talent for sketching and painting to create the look of her films. “I always kept my sketchbook handy, drawing ideas to show directors, producers, set builders, and stylists.”
Nowadays her sketchbook is still her constant companion, ready to capture a scene, from which she draws inspiration to tell a story on canvas. Her paintings evoke scenes with atmosphere and penetrate lives that combine ordinary moments with compelling ones. The BJ Boulter exhibition will be on display until June 29. An artist’s reception will be held on Friday, May 8 from 5pm to 7pm.
ARCA Amorosa (Associação Recreativa e Cultural da Amorosa) is located on R. da Escola, 2, Amorosa (near São Bartolomeu de Messines).
The association is open from Monday to Friday, 8am to 11.30am, and from 12.30pm to 3.30pm. On Saturday and Sunday, between 8am to 11.30am and 12.30pm to 6pm.
To explore the art of BJ Boulter visit her website.
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