Cathalijn Wouters

Cathalijn Wouters

Cathalijn Wouters (1955), born in Tilburg and currently living and working in The Netherlands, graduated in 1980 at the St. Joost Art Academy in Breda.

According to the French writer Guy de Maupassant, elegance is the art of doing everything slightly differently, while giving the impression you are doing everything exactly like everyone else.

Striking brush strokes

Cathalijn Wouters’ work is elegant. First of all, because of her brush lines. In their
refined gracefulness these sometimes almost become Eastern calligraphy. However, her work is equally elegant in how she tentatively explores her own place in art history. She doesn’t react against things. And she certainly doesn’t gratuitously imitate either. In referring to, for example, Henry Mathis or Pablo Picasso, she doesn’t simply borrow from them, but bravely relates herself to their work. By diverging her influences, Wouters reveals completely who she is. Like framed photographs on the mantelpiece reveal lineage.
In her most recent paintings, the artist’s studio takes central stage. It’s a remarkable
subject. All studios look alike. All studios are different, in their own way. This is because the studio space is pre-eminently ambiguous. On the one hand it is a place where the artist withdraws from the world, where she closes the door to its restless confusion and throws herself back on the most essential and frankly only thing at her disposal: her technique and her personality.

Mischa Andriessen