Birgit Huttemann-Holz June Feature 2014 Visual Language Magazine

VL

VISUAL LANGUAGE contemporary fine art

BIRGIT HUTTEMANN- HOLZ

VL

June 2014 Volume 3 No. 6

VL

http://www.brightstroke.com

VL

BIRGIT HUTTEMANN- HOLZ

Aeon (Touch Down), 16”x16”, encaustic on panel, 2012

http://www.brightstroke.com/

VL Artspan Studio Visit

Birgit Huttemann-Holz

Spring 2014 Detroit: Inside the Pioneer Building, Studio 303.

It is still frigid outside, a city frozen almost solid. I open the door to my sanctuary, turn on the light, plug in my electric tools, and turn on the heater.

I connect my IPod, listen a moment to myself, select the music and turn up the volume. Ready!

I step into the U-form of my working space. It surrounds me and allows me to concentrate on my art, not finding things. On the right are my paint griddle and electric skillets, my pigments and waxy brushes.

On my left are oil paints, oil sticks, oil pastels, and brushes with a blue tape on their handle.

The blue tape reminds me to not dip them in wax! For now, directly in front of me, is a large architectural drawing table placed horizontally position. About 5 meters behind me stands a large mirror. I only have to turn around to get a distant glance of my painting so that I can view and critique my work. One, no, two more things - I coat my hands with barrier cream and fasten the apron behind my back. Maybe that is my daily routine. Every other move is dictated by my soul, and my dreams. I am talking about my work - it’s a love affair!

Today, I went downtown before coming to the studio and bought some cobalt blue oil paint. I can’t wait to get my hands into that startling deep blue. Yes, “Mother Nature is my competition!” I start with clear encaustic layers on my wooden panel. I torch, scrape away the excess wax with my razorblades and start anew. After two layers I add some pigments to my wax. Layer after layer I build the foundation, then the background, it is now that I and set the temperament of the painting. Then I start with the outlines and followed by shadows. Today, it is black, straight from the tube, oil, glistening, as thick as my pinky, a bit of linseed oil, pouring, generous and then brush work: Bold, playful, but with many exclamation marks!! It’s a dance that only just begins. I turn and add wax again, burnt umber on top. And so it goes back and forth. In between, I fuse everything with my Iwatani torch, a furious little thing.

http://www.brightstroke.com

I do not use propane. I use butane, a very hot merciless flame, a flame for the impatient, impetuous dare devil. Firedrake!

Now, the detail - cobalt blue of course! I push the oily paint directly on my fingertips - sometimes, I am wearing gloves, but not today! It is a sensory overload. I flick the paint, smear, set accents, wipe , mix, add wax , torch it, burn in, let it pool, scrape away, cover, reveal.

It is my ‘Fascinosum’. And the best of all? Gestural painting! Movement, storm, impact, sweeping, bulging, ripping apart, prying open, with a high arc flying across the plane.

Mighty paintings – ‘Sturm und Drang’ (storm and stress) - they plea: Be careful! At the same time they wave you over and whisper: Come join! Be unrestrained!

An abstract landscape. Cross-border breed, lyrical, upside down. Scratched, incised agitation, reflection, fly-fishing for urgrunds (primal cause or ultimate cosmic principle).

Rising water. A falling flower bud will slay you!

Beauty and abyss! Excessive curiosity, spellbound, trance.

Snap shots of nature at its best!

Storm, decay, ambiguity, explosion, flood, death, devotion, surrender, capitulation.

An org*** mix of decline and resurrection.

Guess? Who am I? A painter of moments, holding uncertainty, foreboding, calling you to rethink: It could be different. Alas!

A master thief of split seconds. Moments ago.

http://www.brightstroke.com

VL Artspan Studio Visit

Birgit Huttemann-Holz

Series: The Truth Lies Elsewhere

Left Above: Passage Du Temps, 20”x20”, encaustic and oil on panel, 2014 Center: Extinguish Thou my Eyes_ R. M. Rilke, 30”x30”, encaustic and oil on panel, 2014 Right Page: Til my soul takes Flight, 24”x18”, encaustic and oil on panel, 2014

http://www.brightstroke.com/

http://www.brightstroke.com/

VL

Artspan Studio Visit Birgit Huttemann-Holz

Series: The Truth Lies Elsewhere

Renaissance, 20�x20�, encaustic and oil on panel, 2014

http://www.brightstroke.com/

Through the Thicket past the Blue, 20”x20”, encaustic and oil on panel, 2014

http://www.brightstroke.com/

VL

Artspan Studio Visit Birgit Huttemann-Holz

Series: Aeon

Left Above: Aeon (Re-Turn), 16”x16”, encaustic on panel, 2012 Center: Aeon (Touch Down), 16”x16”, encaustic on panel, 2012 Right Page: Aeon (Passage) 16”x16””, encaustic on panel, 2012

http://www.brightstroke.com/

http://www.brightstroke.com/

VL

Artspan Studio Visit Birgit Hutteman-Holz

Series: Aeon

Left Above: Aeon (Catharsis) 16”x16”, encaustic on panel, 2013 Right Page: Aeon (Once upon a time), 20”x20”,encaustic on panel, 2013

http://www.brightstroke.com/

I am exploring our desire for a lost Eden. In our fast changing world the infinite splendor of the natural process of entropy and decay becomes a metaphor for the continuum: A fallen world, but free to overcome form and purpose. It is just a state of transition, of change, of evolution.

Failure has a dual nature of its own. It is at once a leap forward and a fall downward, one that can only be made by free human beings. The motivation for such a leap is triggered by curiosity and/or anxiety about the future and about being a human itself.

The cycle of nature is endless; a work of art is an expressed glimpse of the eternal.

Wax and powdered dry pigments have been the consistent medium in my paintings.

I use fire and razorblades to attack and challenge my paintings. I leap and fail, but where creativity and failure dance, I approach the truth.

When I succeed I transcend tragedy and see the genesis of beauty and the ephemeral.

Birgit Huttemann-Holz, 2014

http://www.brightstroke.com/

www.brightstroke.com