Sea of Love © Esther Barend
I love StumbleUpon. With the endless amount of information on the net, how else could I have come across the wonderful abstract paintings of Esther Barend.
Barend was born to an artistic family in Eindhoven, in the south country of The Netherlands. After finishing her studies, she worked and lived in Paris and Amsterdam and established herself as a jewelery designer. Several years later she studied at the Academy of Arts in Arendonk, Belgium, where she developed her unique style of painting.
Barends paintings are mostly autobiographical in nature. She is inspired by her rich and complex inner world, by her current emotions, and by contemporary events. Influenced by the free expression of artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Gerhard Richter, Barend’s paintings are characterized by spontaneity, dynamics, details and intense colours. “Standing in front of a white canvas,” says Barend, “, I follow my feelings. Often I start with a few lines or forms of my imagination. The colours are mixed on the canvas and I work with a lot of layers, thin and thick, which causes a beautiful raw structure. By mixing invented and spontaneous forms the result is well-balanced.”
Producing mainly abstracts, Barend works with acrylic paint combined with glue, charcoal, pieces of pastel chalk, paper, sand and other materials to create paintings that come to life with vibrant colour, contrast, energy, and movement, that keeps the viewer looking.
To see more of Esther Barend’s work, visit EstherBarend.eu.
All images are copyright © Esther Barend