Exhibitions - Drawing the principle – Niels Bo Bojesen
From 26 january till 13 april 2025
About the Exhibition
As a cartoonist being asked to exhibit your work is like receiving a death threat. Trust me, I have tried both.
As most of my cartoonist friends and colleagues, I am - to some degree - an introvert. In a way we hold out a piece of paper between ourselves and the world - showing our work, but not ourselves.
I have often described it like being a stand-up comedian, performing on a stage - addressing a dark and empty theater. In the moment, we cannot see or hear our audience and their reactions - if any.
So we must rely on our own process, and in a sense draw for ourselves.
And in a sense it is the process itself that is the prize:
Finding the essence of the subject, sketching, thinking and combining different paradigms, is superbly gratifying.
I draw cartoons not with the intention to voice my own opinion, but rather to ask a question - to investigate. To try to understand the issue at hand: Politics, conflicts, injustice, misuse of power, violation of human rights or simply everyday life. To see how it resonates with me - as it hopefully will for my audience.
This is a truly visual process. Almost always I need to have my pencil in hand to get ideas. I don’t know how it works, but I imagine that I use alternating and sometimes very remote parts of my brain in the process. I have later learned, that many of my colleagues experience the exactly same.
I have chosen to show 100 pieces of work from roughly the last ten years, covering most of the threats mankind is currently faced with. Most of these include ourselves.
Niels Bo Bojesen
Biography
Niels Bo Bojesen was determined not to follow in the footsteps of his father, a well-known Danish cartoonist. He initially studied law and then the Inuit language at the University of Copenhagen, which brought him to Greenland. However, the urge to draw kept resurfacing, so he went on to study Classical Art and Drawing at the Copenhagen School of Design. With a scholarship, he attended the Department of Media Arts at the School of Visual Arts in New York for a semester.
Back in Denmark, Niels started his own studio in Copenhagen and began illustrating book covers and children's books. He also worked as a guest lecturer at two Danish design schools. Although he still creates children's books, he gradually shifted his focus to editorial and current affairs cartoons, due to his enduring interest in human nature, society, and humor.
Niels' work appears in various Danish and international websites, newspapers, and magazines. He is a member of several cartoon organizations, such as France Cartoons and the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and a former board member of the Danish Cartoon Museum.
He has won numerous international awards, including at the cartoon festivals of Trento and Canada (2023), Libre Expression and World Humor Awards (2022), and the Grand Prix in Gabrovo (2019). He also served as chairman of the jury for the European Cartoon Award in Maastricht (2023) and the Gabrovo Biennial of Humor and Satire in Art (2022).
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