by Josée Thissen-Rojer
“If you really think about it, an artist is always active, creating or thinking about their art.”
Even at a respectable age, visual artist Brigitte Wawoe (Germany, 1939) is still active daily with her art and exhibitions. Brigitte is a sculptor, first and foremost, and creates pieces out of stone, bronze, and recycled material. Additionally, she paints with oil paints. In her paintings, she sometimes uses little pieces of all types of materials. Both in Curaçao and The Netherlands Brigitte Wawoe is a successful, well-known and respected artist.
On August 24th of this year (2019) she will turn 80 years old, and Curaçao Art is seizing the opportunity to talk to her about her life and artistic career. We meet up at Landhuis Bloemhof on the last day of her exhibition ‘Magisch oord’ (Magical place) which took place from March 23rd to April 20th, 2019.
In May 2019 Brigitte will travel back to The Netherlands, where she has 3 more exhibitions planned for this year. In the past, Brigitte exhibited her work in Gallery Eighty-Six here in Curaçao. After this gallery closed its doors, Brigitte chose the gallery at Landhuis Bloemhof, and here she has been faithfully holding exhibitions every 3 years from 2003.
Her favorite material is stone, especially stone from Curaçao’s Tafelberg. Brigitte spends roughly 3 months a year on the island, to work in her studio at Sta. Barbara, where she enjoys working with stone from the Tafelberg, and metal machine parts. For 27 years now she’s been collecting parts from all sorts of industrial machines, which she welds together to create new forms. She makes her own designs and then asks a welder to help her with the tougher work.
All her bronze pieces are made in the Netherlands. Brigitte loves bronze, which is a venerable, long-lasting, and elegant material. Working in bronze follows a tradition that has existed for thousands of years. That’s why this is important to her.