From INSIDE 2 OUTSIDE

Saturday 3 October 2009 I had the chance to be present at the opening of Babs Straalman exhibition in Richter Gallery (Den Helder, Noord Holland). After I met the artist I had the pleasure to take a short interview which I want to share with readers of this website.

As a drama teacher, Babs studied in Leeuwarden different ways of communication through arts, making first steps into her professional formation as a future artist.

Interested in drawing and painting from teenage years she persevered in art of illustrations but also contributed to (the) making of several plays(from text to stage image), being involved in set-design and create(ing) costumes. Babs life and surroundings are a daily source of inspiration because she enjoys every morning walking near the sea, analyzing details of nature, of architecture and all she finds interesting for keep in mind folders. Her sketches can describe the process of assimilating components of everyone’s environment and also explain her act of simplifying information in the direction of creating a new visual story.

Some of her favorite artists are Hundertwasser, Escher, Klimt but also appreciate well done children books which she enjoys so much. She find these books inspiring because it speaks in one page a story. That’s the way she always wanted to tell a story in one picture. Message of her works is more than evident : Freedom of human being, ESCAPE from a conventional-reality , quotidian space which sometimes suppress our happiness. Spontaneity of shapes and lines take face of her overflowing imagination.

From contemporary art she is attracted mostly by installations(reason for her past projects that involves works of art borned from recycled materials). She is consciously about the power of reflecting others through this huge Mirror – Art.

Meet subjects in Babs’ exhibition? Bird houses, flying machines, flying animals, boats(big or small) all captured in a world that stays under the sign of free game played frankly but in the same time, one that constructs a serious puzzlement of wishes and hopes.

13.10.2009

(Vlad Dumitrescu –Petrica , editor for DesignYourself online art magazine)

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