Tours 
For the first time in a long while, illustrator Jori van Boxtel let go of commissioned work and focused on her own ideas. The Blind Walls Talent Call gave her the time, space and guidance to develop her visual language.
How was the past year for you?
“It was a super fun and learning experience with lots of nice people. The Blind Walls Talent Call has been very valuable for me to further develop my visual language. I am an illustrator and work mostly on commission. For this course, I was selected with new work of my own. That gave me the confidence to finally take the time to develop that with the aim of applying it in commissioned form afterwards.”
The journey began with a mural at Ploegendienst Festival. How did you experience that?
“The execution of the mural was during the construction of the festival. Those were two very intense but amazing days. A race against the clock in the blazing sun. My first sketches were quite dark and hectic. I was advised by my coach Ilse Weisfelt to make the design more accessible to the festival audience by giving it a more cheerful look. The constructive feedback she gave made the final design much better. It was nice that she could estimate how much detail and information the design could contain to make it within two days. She also explained to me how to use a grid to get my design on the wall.”
Talents working on murals on the Ploegendienst Festival grounds. Photo by Rob Lipsius. 2024
Can you tell a bit about your background and your approach?
“I studied illustration at AKV St. Joost in Breda. After graduating, I started working as a freelance illustrator and have done many different types of illustration work. Sometimes I work as an animation designer for children’s series, but last year, for example, I realised a 3-metre-high monument in corten steel. Before, I thought I had to focus on one direction, but now I am very happy with the variety in assignments. When I start a new assignment, I often start by writing. Short sentences, pieces or titles related to a particular topic. It also helps me to listen to music to get into the right flow of thoughts. Then I write a concept and from there I sketch and so on to the final design.”
What did you find most enlightening about this trajectory?
“The pace at which the mural had to be finished forced me to work faster. Since then, I notice that I also complete other assignments much faster. In addition, the exhibition was a great moment to finally experiment with materials and techniques I had been curious about for some time. For instance, we had a graphics workshop at Kapitaal, which made me start cutting linocuts again. Ilse’s guidance was also very valuable. Since I usually work alone, I realised how nice and instructive it is to be able to spar with someone about my work.”
Jori’s solo exposition ‘Point of View’ in the Blind Walls Gallery Gallery. Photo by Rob Lipsius. 2024
‘Point of View’ was your very first solo exhibition. What was it like?
“Lovely! For all sorts of nonsense reasons, I had never been so intensely involved in creating my own work in this way. I enjoyed diving completely, without noise, into my own world for a while and creating what I really wanted. It started with a line from Spinvis’s song Tingeltangelhersenpan: bijna niet te vatten van de winter lag hier sneeuw (almost unfathomable of winter there was snow here). Really empathising with something or someone else can be difficult and we do it too little. I wanted the exhibition to respond to what it’s like to visually see the other side of something too. And how you can experience things very differently, even if you are standing next to each other. Because it remains miraculous that we are all still able to construct an entire worldview for ourselves from our very flawed perspective.
”How has the Talent Call influenced your career as an artist?
“Through my participation, I finally took the time to develop myself as a maker. Through the guidance and trust from Blind Walls Gallery, I felt the space to experiment and make choices outside my comfort zone. Via Blind Walls, I received a commission for the Municipality of Breda. I was allowed to take care of a coffee room of Breda Werkt by creating a mural in combination with acoustic wall panels made of felt. I had worked with that material for the expo, so it was nice to carry that out immediately in commission form.”
Afdeling Werk | Gemeente Breda | ATEA-groep | PHOTEDby Edwin Wiekens. 2025
Afdeling Werk | Gemeente Breda | ATEA-groep | PHOTED by Edwin Wiekens. 2025
If you could choose one particular memory from the process, which one would you like to share?
“While painting at Ploegendienst, it was 30+ degrees. From morning to evening, we were right in the sun. Soon I got into such hyper-focus that I no longer felt the heat and the time pressure was so strong that I didn’t really want to take a break. But every so often the alarm went off and we had to get out of the sun or take a dip. I would then reluctantly put down my brush. Once in the water, the coolness was so nice and so needed! As I watched the five murals slowly come to life, I realised how awesome it was what we were doing.”
Written by: Anne van Bree
This collaboration stems from the Blind Walls Talent Call, an annual trajectory in which five makers from the Netherlands and Belgium are supported to develop themselves in terms of content and professionalism. On 2 and 3 July 2025, five new talents will be allowed to create a mural on the Ploegendienst site, after which they, like Jori, will be allowed to realise a solo exhibition and will be guided towards new opportunities.
The Blind Walls Talent Call is made possible by Keep an Eye Foundation, Gemeente Breda, Provincie Noord-Brabant, Verfplaza and Kairos Events.