For Arts Sake: 25th October 2012

Friday 2 November 2012

25th October 2012 - Esther Barend

In 1964, Barend was born in the Netherlands to an artistic family. Upon completing her studies, she lived and worked both in Paris and Amsterdam before establishing herself as a jewellery designer. Several years later, Barend undertook classes in Arendonk at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium. Throughout the years, she developed her own unique style, but continues to seek ways to surpass herself, develop further by constantly experimenting and challenging herself to discover new horizons. Barend now works and lives in Belgium with her work being exhibited from New York - Amsterdam - Paris to Tokyo. Esther Barend has a relentless desire to paint and has found it an essential to the way she lives, as it is her way of openly expressing herself with total freedom using paint on canvas in poweful, vigorous motions when there are no words. The image is built up with intense, contrasting, vibrant colours, along with a multitude of layers that transport the viewer into another world through a captivating visual spectacle, which exists only in our own mind. Barend is very much inspired by her rich and complex inner world and explores its entirety through an inevitable personal perspective as an artist which is magnified by her present flow of emotions and contemporary events. There are those who question if Barends figurative abstract artworks are inspired by masks of the carnival, when in fact the works are based more on the premise of the general masks that we all unconsciously wear on a daily basis to disguise our emotions or hide our insecurities. Barends intension is to display on the outside, what is on the inside through a multitude of complex layers and details in the hopes that by revealing the truth we can be strengthened or softened depending on which emotions need to be adjusted by the thoughts we keep hidden internally. The beautifully intricate paintings encourage us to open our minds and look beyond our initial and sometimes limiting sight in order to develop a manner of seeing that shifts our understanding.