Where the light falls Print

Statement My eyes are searching for images, images that want to be seen . For me the challenge is to paint their vulnerable beauty. I believe art is inextricably linked with and formed by all the other aspects of life. I grew up in Brussels. I remember in my childhood that I liked to draw, to colour at home. At that time there were no academies for children like I see them now. I remember our teacher of art in school was a great fan of my work. To be honest, I didn’t understand it really because my paintings were often more clumsy then I wanted. But now I think that there probably was a lot of emotion in my bombastic work! I studied psychology but it took me a while before I worked as. I think age, confidence played a role in that. Becoming a mother was a very important new step. It was also then that I started to paint, started to follow academie for art. It was a beautiful balance , being with the kids every day and on the other hand having my own freedom in painting. In the same period I stopped the work I did and I finished a formation as clientcentered - experiential psychotherapist. I then started a practice on my own as a psychologist /psychotherapist and it grew organically with the evolution in our family. The confidential conversations as psychologist with clients sharing parts of their soul, where I listen, and create space for being by the inner of the other, are still an important part of my life. Doing this for years, made me more sensitive to be full of attention, with this person, with this story. It trained me to stay with all emotion, with all difficulties that somebody has. I learned to trust the therapeutic process, with all waves of progress and getting back. I learned to go further, to go deeper. All that is the fundamental layer within myself wich certainly influences me while I am painting. More and more I feel the urge of working as an artist without leaving my work as psychologist. I love painting, I love the concentration , almost meditative , time flows over. I also love the process, although it is by moments very frustrating when what I see on my canvas is not what I want to paint ! But I continue, I go on , layer on layer, scratching the paint away, to put new stripes, new wipes. Then I leave it for a while, to go on after a time. Until it comes! That is an undescribable moment, when I see it coming ! Makes me deeply happy.