Interview with Birgit Huttemann-Holz
My name is Birgit Huttemann-Holz, I am a German American painter and printmaker. My energetic works show a lush world, where nature is in constant celebration. My lyrical abstractions reflect an intense relationship with the surrounding landscape, an intimate experience of wilderness which mirrors alluring and alarming oneself.
I have exhibited nationally and internationally, and I am represented in Germany, The Netherlands, and in the US.
What initially inspired you to pursue a career in the arts, and how has your personal journey influenced your artistic style?
I never really thought of a career in the arts. I imagined being an artist at the age of 13 years old, when I started to write poetry. I loved creating images, metaphors, emotional truths, it was exhilarating and otherworldly. I thought of it as my secret power, my magic. I once asked Walter Hilsbecher, a German writer and holocaust survivor: How do you become a writer? He answered enigmatically: When the need to write is first and foremost.
The need to create and to execute my magic, my gift never left me.
In my 20s, I played and sang in a band, became a Physical Therapist to sustain myself, and wrote poetry until I moved to the USA in my mid-thirties.
It was here in the USA that I experienced writer’s block. I couldn’t express my SELF, my wit, my humor, my melancholy in English. Ultimately, my need pushed me to a universal language, into painting.
I soon explored oils and magic realism, and then I discovered encaustic painting, which pushed me into my love for color. When I wrote poetry, I always saw color attached to my writings. I perceived them together, a form of Synesthesia. I painted in encaustic exclusively for 10 years, becoming more and more loose and semiabstract in my brushwork and design.
I switched back to acrylic painting for health reasons and because I longed for expressive, long brushstrokes. Encaustic paint solidifies in 3 seconds. Gestural painting is almost impossible. At the same time, I dove into encaustic monotype, printmaking. Here with the help of a heated aluminum plate the wax stays liquid, gesture is an immanent factor in mark making on the plate. It is your personal signature, the cursive handwriting of your soul, and it is unique and you!
My subject matter switched from figurative magic realism in the beginning, to semi abstract landscapes, and then extended to gestural abstract florals.
What do you hope viewers take away from your exhibitions? Is there a particular feeling or thought you aim to evoke through your art?
A painting can be an experience. Brief or fundamental. It can be arresting, a trigger for memory or a freefall of emotions. I witnessed that people who stop in front of my paintings are often mesmerized by its color, its mood and in a sense, it mirrors their own beauty and vulnerability, their own emotional truths.
I am touched by glorious landscapes, the close ups, and the long views. It is here, when I stumble upon an exterior landscape that mirrors my interior wilderness that my creative process starts. Painting for me is a colorful musing of an interior world projected outwards. Imagination and memories are linked faculties. Every act of memory is to one degree or another also an imaginative act. The landscapes and sceneries that answer me bleed hues of pink, magenta, purple, orange, and gold, alluring and alarming. I coax the image to the surface with color as my leading subconscious gateway. Being a contemporary romanticist at heart, I depict the grandeur of nature and the place of humanity within it. My emotional truth, my paintings touch on the Human Condition, life, and its fragility.
If my work resonates with the audience, we both are aware of life’s beauty and its vulnerability.
Can you walk us through your creative process? From the initial concept to the final piece, how do you bring your visions to life?
My studio is my sanctuary, it allows me to slip right away into the creative process without judgement or cautious decision making.
I simply pick a color and start painting. Often not knowing what imagery I intend to create, I enter a dance of sweetness, sadness, intoxicated by color, variations of marks and brush strokes until I am in the middle of the painting, the ugly mess. I step back and I start editing. Simplify, magnify, “observe!” is the mantra for the next days. I used to be very impatient, often overpainting what I conceived as not working. Nowadays, I take more time to observe to deliberately consume and decipher my feelings of uneasiness. Until I am past the feeling of insufficiency and can start from a feeling of peace and sufficiency. Usually, the way to move forward presents itself again in a blissful response. The last step is to wait a couple of weeks and if the painting or monotype is still surprising me, I know it is good and finished.
Nature is usually my subject matter, my metaphor for life, the long view of a landscape or the short view, a flower, dried grasses, or a labyrinth of roots.
Something must be said about work that suddenly arises, which is not consistent with your series, or even painting style. Three years ago, I was really irritated and stunned, as to where did this come from, why now, why this?
Nowadays, I am almost frolicking, because I know these are the avantgarde paintings, paintings from the future. Usually appearing 2 years before I actively start a new phase in my design and /or painting style. They are fun and sometimes scary as hell.
Your style is characterized by gestural abstraction. What attracts you to this form of expression, and how do you feel it conveys your experiences and emotions more effectively than other styles might?
I think every brushstroke is abstraction. The energy in a brushstroke is visible. Each brushstroke translates emotional meaning. I paint with my body, visceral, I am in the painting, dancing, stomping, often closing my eyes and trusting my signature. Color is abstraction and embodiment of emotion, an offering of my most sacred, a glimpse of how I perceive the world.
My application of color, gesture, brushstrokes, or mark making is the DNA of my works. It is not a style. It is my unique language and voice.
Looking forward, what new directions or themes are you interested in exploring in your future works?
There are two poles, abstraction and back to the figure that create a constant tug of war in my meandering thoughts of what is next.
I don’t know yet, will it be a jumping off the cliff experience that decides or a slow burning, inching forward journey? Both start with a simple step. Trust.
What advice would you offer to emerging artists striving to achieve success in the highly competitive art world? Is there a particular mindset or practice that you believe is crucial for artistic growth and recognition?
Do not rely on outside validation.
Mistakes are the roadmaps to solutions.
Be vulnerable.
Be patient, listen to your voice and follow through.
