Willamarie Huelskamp

My paintings come from my heart. It would be easy for me to edit out all that is meaningful in my paintings by judging an inspiration as too sentimental, too complicated, or just plain crazy. Wrestling with my inner voices, both angels and demons, I struggle to create a personal visual language.

Painting affirms my love of the messy tactile world, the world of color and surfaces. The paint becomes my micro-universe where I play with textures, rhythms of line and patterns of form, and more importantly the duality of creation and destruction. I layer the paint and collage to create real depth on the pictorial surface. Primitive art inspires my work in its disregard for anatomical correctness and illusionary effects of perspective. An Egyptian frontal view of the shoulders, an Aboriginal dot, an Assyrian eye facing forward in a facial profile and an Anasazi headdress can all be found in my work. Much inspiration comes from the work of Paul Klee, Picasso and Chagall who were each inspired, like me, by primitive art.

The subject of my work sometimes reflects experiences my life with my family and animals but they can also be a reflection of the inner journeys of my mind. This messy humanness I share with all the people who have come before me and who will come after me, fuels my artistic engine. Through deceptively simple images and rich layering of texture, I intend for my paintings to speak beyond culture and time and location. Employing a personal symbolic language my paintings are the vehicle in my search for wholeness and connection.


Portfolio:

Recent Work

The people in my paintings represent the alter-egos of my painting self in a cartoon life scenario. Often accompanied with birds or animals they evoke an inward myopic moment or an uncomfortable encounter with other humans. Simple cartoonish black lines unite many layers of collage and paint, make bold statements of reflection.

Feathered Friends “Feathered Friends”

48" x36" acrylic and collage on canvas

Bacio “Bacio”

24" x 18" acrylic and collage on board

She Really is a Sweet Kitty “She Really is a Sweet Kitty”

24" x 30" acrylic and collage on board

Red Birds “Red Birds”

24" x 18" acrylic and collage on board

The Artists “The Artists”

36" x 48" Acrylic and collage on canvas

Becoming Joy “Becoming Joy”

acrylic and collage on canvas 30" x 40"