Barbara Windelboer

South Africa

Wildenboer Contemporary Mixed Media Art

Collage and Paper Constructions with Archive Images

Installation Art Exploring Nature and Memory

"Drawing on themes like fractal geometry and the mathematical sublime, Wildenboer’s practice investigates how natural forms — from the microscopic to the monumental — are bound by invisible yet intricate patterns. At the heart of her work lies a concern with environmental aesthetics, where nature is not only observed but actively engaged through human interaction and reinterpretation.

In her recent series LOOT, she examines the complex relationships between Africa and Europe, using appropriation both as a conceptual strategy and a formal technique. By assembling museum-held images of ancient artifacts into towering paper constructions, she mimics — and critiques — the Western museological gaze. These hybrid forms evoke totems, trees, and timelines, questioning how meaning is shaped, displayed, and often distorted.

Her work invites viewers into a space where fiction meets archive, and where the past is reassembled not as a fixed truth, but as a layered and shifting construction.

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MEET

Barbara Windelboer

Barbara Wildenboer is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the philosophical terrain of aesthetics, time, and interconnectedness. Her approach blends analogue and digital techniques across mediums such as collage, altered books, photographic sculptures, and installations.

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