Carlos Blaaker is leaving
After living and working on our beautiful island for 15 years, visual artist Carlos Blaaker is packing his bags. He and his partner Neeltje are setting sail to explore new adventures. The Curaçao Museum is announcing a retrospective exhibition featuring Carlos’s exclusive works, titled:
Carlos Blaaker is Leaving
Date: April 5, 2024
Time: 7 pm
Location: The Curaçao Museum
Carlos Blaaker
Carlos Blaaker studied at the New School for Visual Arts and the Academy for Higher Art and Culture in Paramaribo, Suriname. After that, he studied at The Art Students League of New York and did a print-making workshop led by Bob Blackburn. A few years after returning to Suriname, he left for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he lived, worked, and had a gallery for 19 years. In 2009, Carlos moved to Curaçao, where he focused on making sculptures in bronze, polyurethane, steel, polyester, and wood.
“I want to combine painting and sculpting so that a painting can become a three-dimensional object and vice versa. These are attempts to remove the barrier between sculpture and painting and elevate the images,” says Carlos. He tells a story with his art and often shows ordinary people who live in his community.
Blaaker’s muses are the underprivileged people in his neighborhood that he sees around him every day: immigrants, the homeless, undocumented immigrants, and other disadvantaged people—recognizable types that you could encounter on the street anywhere in the world.
At first glance, the model appears just depicted, but beneath its realistic surface, a story hides in its context. Through his art, Carlos makes the ‘invisible’ of our society visible, as a firm criticism.
The exhibition will be on display until July 20, 2024.
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