Ilya Volykhine

About Barbara Houwers

Barbara Houwers is a Dutch artist, specialising in painting. She lives and works in Blaricum (Amsterdam region). Her successful series inspired by themes around the human being have led to many exhibitions and commissions from companies, government and institutions. Barbara’s works can be found both in private and corporate collections and public buildings. Barbara Houwers was mainly known for her paintings of human figures, mostly painted in subdued earth tones. However, in 2013 she switched to more abstract pieces of art in geometrical patterns and sometimes also bright colours. This seems to be a great style break, however, as with many artists, also for Houwers a logical further development of her basic forms. Herewith the artist is not afraid of new techniques and materials. So she designed portable objects with the 3-D printing technique and she made the switch to more three-dimensional work. Houwers’s technique evolved from a traditional painting technique with the human figure as a theme to a more experimental treatment of her materials. The brush was partly replaced by the palette knife and besides paint, also other materials such as sand and resin were introduced. This experimental treatment of the material came back with the series of works Houwers made at the start of the millennium where the aspect of space predominated. In 2007 the geometric form appeared with the series “little suitcases”. The human shape was more reduced to a contour line. Houwers made the switch to the theme of repetition in 2013. By the repetition of shapes a feel of rest is created. The beauty of this type of art is formed by the techniques used by Houwers. The paint is applied in many layers by the palette knife. In this way an art is created that refers to itself and less to the tangible world. The love for the material has become the subject of her art, still the humaneness remains secured in her works by filling in the geometrical forms with a natural brush technique whereby the brush strokes still strongly remind of the human figure. This creates an abstract formal art of painting that directly appeals to and reflects the human emotion, a daring combination only tried by a few artists. Barbara Houwers does not only have the guts to convey the contrast between the rational geometric and the emotional, but above all she has got the talent to do so. By: Art Historian Diana Kostman 2015