Brigitta Westphal
Germany
Brigitta Westphal is born in Germany and was living in the Frankfurt area for a long time. In recent years she has changed the center of her live between her Franconian homeland (Germany) and southern Tuscany (Italy).
A thorough education in painting and the graphic arts are the basis for the artist to realize her ideas effectively.
Human and nature stand as main subjects in the center of her oeuvre. Therefore, her individual focus deriving from subjective biographical elements forms the artist’s works. The encounter with Robert Musil’s novel “The Man without Qualities” was a crucial experience. Inspired from the tense affinity to this poet, Brigitta Westphal produced two cycles of 14 oil paintings each.
These became step stones in her artistic development. Since 1986, transferring world literature into adequate picturesque works is a special challenge to the artist.
Lectures in France, Germany and USA:
Subject: “Literature and its Transference into Painting in the View of an Artist”
Dr. Helmut Orpel,
Segni D’Arte Rome
Art Historien and Journalist
Brigitta Westphal taught the techniques of etching and painting in Germany, Italia and Saudi Arabia
Her work as the first German artist at workshops at the 1st School of Art for Arab women in Riyadh, a project initiated by Princess Adwa a daughter of the late King of Saudi Arabia continues to influence her own artistic work greatly. By highly regarded expositions in Germany and in other European countries (especially Italy) her oeuvre became known.
silence farewell
1. What’s your background?
Already as a child, I had drawn and painted a lot. Especially during my three years’ stay at a boarding school, my creativity was very much encouraged. I learned to play the piano, painted scenery for plays and for plates and cups.
Professionally, I then worked for 15 years as a cartographer.
After moving to the Frankfurt area, I began private lessons with artists in their studios. I learned the craft of intaglio printing, as well as the oil painting. I was so enthusiastic that since then creativity was part of my daily routine - and in 1986 I decided to become a painter as a full-time profession.
2. What does your work aim to say?
I want to invite the viewer into a world where reality escapes into the dream and the dream again takes on realistic features. Art cannot change the world, but it can make us all think.
What is important for me is that a picture conveys something: This can be both stimulation, enthusiasm, even rejection, or simply joy. My surreal images will certainly be more accessible to the viewer who allows feelings.
3. How does your work comment on current social or political issues?
The recent lockdown has been influencing my work for a year now, and I have created several oil paintings on this theme.
4. Who are your biggest influences?
References to Robert Musil’s literary works and to Hermann Hesse shaped my intellectual experiences and influenced my creative power. It was and still is an attempt to enter into the world of thoughts of a writer and make it visible.
Further, also Max Ernst’s paintings influenced my pictorial representation.
Desertflower
5. How has your art evolved over the years?
Initially, I saw the occupation with art as a hobby. I accepted small exhibitions that were offered. At the opening, I always showed on my small printing press the creation of a two-color print. When the first oil paintings after texts were ready, I invited to my private rooms for readings.
Since 1986 I am a professional painter. Especially my many stays in Italy, where I lived and worked for several months at a time, brought me very far professionally. I was promoted very much, received interesting exhibition offers, was in art newspapers and in a talk show on television in Rome.
After that I received invitations to exhibitions in Europe, and later in New York. This was followed by lectures in France, Germany and America on the subject of "Translating literature into painting from the point of view of a female artist“.
In 2012, as the first German painter, I received an invitation from the German Embassy in Riyadh to make a
workshop at the 1. Art school for Arab women. In 2015 I returned there and taught graphics.
In addition my work in Saudi Arabia continues to influence my own artistic painting greatly.
6. What does art mean to you?
I am a painter with passion. To be creative, that is my purpose in life. I love to always find new ways and love new challenges.
7. What’s the most valuable piece of art to you?
This is an oil painting 2m x 2,5m from the illustrated book "Musil-Paraphrases II" after a text by Robert Musil from the novel "The Man without Qualities".
8. What’s next for you in the future?
First of all, I would like to paint.
Currently, I have an offer from an agent in NewYork for July 2022 on my desk - which is very interesting.
I had a dream
