Waele, Babette de

Babette de Waele (1980) was born in Breda, the Netherlands. In 2001, she completed her education at Fontys Academy of Fine Art in Tilburg. During her training, she also studied in Spain at the Academia de Bellas Artes in Granada. She has been living in Curacao since 2006.

Her art is about everyday life, humanity, and the environment. Social situations and human interactions, as well as people’s faces, are recurrent themes in her oeuvre. She also uses her work to express her commitment to animal rights and nature. In her more recent paintings, she focuses on nature as a creative force of life. Throughout, her spiritual engagement plays an important role.

Babette applies various techniques and styles in her artistic work. Her paintings are executed in acrylic paint or with mixed media techniques. She also makes digital artwork and drawings on paper.

In the Netherlands, her work has been exhibited in Tilburg, Etten-Leur, Culemborg, Haelen and Amsterdam. Since living in Curaçao, she has participated regularly in group exhibitions or visual art events. In 2013, she was one of the local artists who participated in the international event Curaçao World’s Longest Painting, which took place from June 29th to July 1st in Curaçao.

In March 2014, she was invited by Landhuis Bloemhof to participate in Nation in Transition. For this exhibition, she created a diptych, ‘The Whole Called Us‘. The painting on the left of the diptych is executed in dark colors and shows a man’s distorted face filled with dead birds. The image on the left is painted in appealing colors, and the features of the woman’s face are soft. On her forehead are the markings of butterfly wings, and a colorful bird is approaching her inviting hand.

Babette, who adheres to a vegan lifestyle, used the opportunity offered by Nation in Transition to make a very clear statement about her personal holistic ideology and make a sincere appeal for love and peace: “… It is time for an awakening. (…) Only when the mind and the heart transform and let love in will there be harmony, unity, and respect. And we can all live in peace.”