Chantal Van Houten

Art according to Chantal van Houten art is about conveying emotions. Her paintings tend to put the viewer in a trance while observing and perceiving ideas beyond the image. Houten is a contemporary Dutch artist, born 1979 in the Netherlands. In 2005, she finished her education at the Academy of Media and Art in Amsterdam and worked several years as a graphic designer. Globally, she has been a part of various projects, including exhibitions held in Amsterdam, New Delhi, Kuwait, and Berlin.

For Houten, the work should lead the viewer's imagination, which suggestively must come alive. Her main inspiration is the way people behave in a set environment and express their emotions. Consistently and persistently, this shows in her work, presenting figurative elements with a stark focus on the facial expression. The viewer experiences the artist's attempts to capture different feelings. Allowing the audience to become one with her practice, it is her method to generate an interactive stance through her artworks. 

Houten’s colours are melodramatic, communicating the core of the figuration composition. The work itself forces the observer to reckon with the internalization of the thought of the figure within the work and find relations to the image itself. Theatrical and stylised, her figures are warm, genial and familial.

The importance lies beneath the non-expression, Houten says her work intends to deliver some kind of emotional experience. Her work in portraiture with neutral expressions gives an impending sense of movement where the viewer is forced to look beyond the physical and reach a higher connection. Significantly, she highlights the sense of touch through the recurring act of hugging and embracing humans.

Chantal Van Houten currently lives and works in the Netherlands.