Presidential suite Print

Simone Houtman is born and based in Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands. She graduated with a BFA at the Royal Academy of Art (2007) in The Hague, Netherlands. Her paintings have an atmosphere of suspense. You feel that there is something going on, or something to be happening, but what that is, is not visible. She uses pictures of moments that have an attraction to her: it can be stills, movies, inspired, photographs and images from her head. The fleetingness of the movies or moments seems to be frozen in the silence of the painting. The following subjects has a place in her work: empty streets, old-fashioned interiors with many views to other rooms.The things you see give you a clue of what’s happening or what you are looking at, but not enough to understand it all. You will see a situation, sometimes with a person in an old-fashioned interior who is doing something indefinable, or we look of a viewpoint outside through a window inside. We do not know where we are and what we see, but we always feel the present of people. She also love to paint nature. Sometimes she goes to the nature and paint the beautiful landscape around her. Sometimes it has a deeper meaning for her, and other times it is what you see, a beautiful place to be. She was honoured with a Grant from the Dutch Prince Bernard Culture Fund (Tijl Fund) for her exhibition in Guadalest, Spain in 2016.