She lives between Austria and Rome after being a longterm traveller and lifelong artist. Throughout her artistic career, Brigita Huemer Limentani has captured the patterns of nature’s beauty trying to translate the forms into three-dimensional works such as in her sculpures in which the intensity of colours interplay with the dynamic structure of light on plexiglass and paper. Her art is an emotional aesthetic experience made of lines and patterns elegantly defined.
Photography was your first choice when you started your artistic career in New York where you studied painting. Can you tell us more about your early years there and your beginnings?
In New York, I worked on figurative painting, mostly self-portraits and life drawing. I worked a lot on traditional oil painting because coming from Europe it was important to reflect my cultural heritage, my roots. I tried to concentrate a lot on my heritage. I was especially influenced by Gustav Klimt. I would use gold as the background and the human figure. As Europeans, we are very close to our culture and origins; we live through our traditions and customs. I must say living in NY was a great experience, it gave me the freedom to find myself without being judged. Being part Austrian and part Croatian, I did not see or feel the borders, everything was open to me. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I’ve always loved traveling and seeing different cultures. Working in my early twenties as an international model helped me travel and see the world. It was a great way of combining my love for culture, art, and fashion in the beginning. Consequently, I found photography easier, especially during my journeys. I’ve always loved places where I feel in harmony with myself.
The beauty of nature is prevalent in these photos.
I took photographs of objects untouched by humans, the ones you find in nature as they are. It was quite an emotional experience to see something in these objects that other people could not and would not see. I suppose I wanted to make what I was seeing visible to others, especially how I saw the natural world.In places such as Polynesia or Africa the feeling of being part of a bigger picture is powerful because nature there is so immense, almost overwhelming. As a human you feel so small, but in harmony. You can’t help but feel this way. Nature is also dangerous in Polynesia and the islands far from one another with great distances at sea make you feel vulnerable. I tried to capture the moment and connection with my surroundings, the emotion of how small we are compared to all of this greatness and put it into my photographs.
In the photographs collected in “Kia Orana”, you focused mostly on objects and natural forms, such as stones, rocks, pieces of bark, trunks, and fibers. What’s the meaning of Kia Orana?
It means “Welcome” in Polynesia where I took the photos. I decided to use local words or signs, something that would reflect the connection between image and place.
Because I had worked in fashion before, it was also important to focus on textures and materials – at the time I did not really know that I was looking for different geometrical forms and textures – for example, a leaf or a stone, the patterns you can see within their seemingly casual geometry. It’s like in abstract art where the repetition of patterns is something you can notice, something that artists repeat over and over. Through photography, I looked without really searching for objects transformed in time. It was like meditating in nature for me. I tried to capture this special moment of transformation over time with these natural patterns that were created by the sun, the wind on the ground, or the lines on the skin of a fruit.
Such as Fibonacci’s sequences that we can find in a leaf, on animals’ furs. I had noticed that Der Knacks [The fracture] seems to be a piece of ground while it’s the bark of a coconut.
Yes, exactly. Not only a series of deformed coconut photographs were created at that time, but also special shaped stones and leaves.
In Das Ei an unprotected egg had been laid on a tree in the open air on this pristine island in Polynesia where humans didn’t go at the time. The birds were not afraid of human presence because there were no humans there at all. That egg, laid on that tree, was in symbiosis with the tree, blending with its colors and forms.
Can you tell me something about the technique you were using at the time?
This is black and white film shot on a Nikon camera with a macro lens which allowed me to capture the texture. At the time I developed my own film and hand printed the photographs even in large sizes.
These other photos are from another journey; were they included in another exhibition?
Yes, I did different stories in different exhibitions. You can still see some of the photographs today at the Hotel “The First Roma Arte” and “The H’ALL tailor suite” in Rome. These photographs were taken in Africa and Croatia. One is titled My Land, My Past; this one was taken in Croatia. In this photograph you can see a grandmother walking into her stall, she is still alive today. She lived through two wars and has many stories to tell about my grandparents and family. I loved her strength and independence. Strong women have always been very present in my life.
The second photograph is what remains of an old mattress abandoned somewhere close to my grandfather’s land. I like how objects change and integrate with their surroundings over time.
After the civil war in Croatia there were many traces of this and stories I felt the need to capture. I wanted to remember the people I lost at that time and how important it is to accept change in life. Life is in constant change and never stays the same. I am very connected to my grandparents’ land and its nature where I spent a big part of my childhood. I liked these traces of time and my history transformed in time and atmosphere. I didn’t know why I wanted to capture all of these details at the time, now I know it was to have a connection with my past.
I was searching for the best way to express myself, through the cruelty of reality, bringing to the surface something untouched, almost infantile, our origins without any alterations or modifications.
And what about the human presence in these photos void and nonetheless with some traces in the background.
This one is called “ghost city”. The setting of the picture was immersed in the desert. The sand was everywhere, it entered and invaded the houses and rooms. I took this one inside a house in which the sand had really taken over everything. I love how nature took back what belonged to it, the traces of time were present in every object.
This one was taken in Namibia in a place called Dead Valley Sossusvlei, which is also a favourite place for fashion photographers. It’s a magical and ancient place where the bushmen used to stay. Its peculiar colors come from the minerals in the sand. It’s a very difficult place to get to, it is extremely hot. 1000-year-old trees have become black over time, they are like skeletons, The wood does not decompose because it is so dry. The trees look like sculptures standing in the white bleached sand and orange desert surrounding the valley.
Did you use film or a digital camera?
At a certain point I started to use a digital camera. Previously I had been working only with traditional film. At the time, I wanted the photographs to have a museum-like quality, so I digitally printed the photographs on cotton paper. Each photograph is like a unique art piece. The photographic paper is crucial for the result you want to obtain once the image is printed; the cotton paper allowed me to obtain a different absorption of black and white shades, intense colors.
After photography, you started working on painting.
At the time I didn’t have a studio so working with photography was easier. I started painting after 2006, but I didn’t quite feel ready for this new art form. A few years later I had a baby girl. For a period, I wasn’t able to concentrate on my work. I never would have imagined how much you can grow and learn from a child; how different everything is when you balance your personal life caring for another being. Once my daughter had grown up, I managed to work full-time as an artist. In the beginning, I used to mix painting and photography, but I still felt that something was missing. I worked on zebra patterns, as you can see here.
The result was a shift in the perspective, depending on the way and the position from where you looked at the painting – seen from one side the zebra disappears. The transparency is obtained thanks to paper. I started mixing different techniques; photography and wood; wood and canvas with a wooden base and collages made of photos and paper. I still wasn’t satisfied though. I was experimenting, trying to transform everything I had done until then into a new language which I continued doing. I began using Plexiglass, I overlapped two layers and began developing my work further into spirals called life energy.
As regards your current work, how do you get to an object or a form, why do you choose exactly that one?
Before I start painting it’s not like I wake up and have a vision. I need a few days or even weeks to think about it and develop it in my head. It’s like a three-dimensional image – I start figuring out images and then I begin putting them together. Sometimes I do sketches on paper before I set things in motion, then I study them. It’s like having a dream and trying to put things together after waking up to complete the work.
The next step is creating something real out of the sketches. I slowly approach my studio thinking of a bigger sketch and then I decide which colors to use, how many layers there will be and how to actually go about creating it.
Today I am less afraid of failure, I am more open to testing varied materials. I would say I am more confident about doing new things instead of hesitating to venture out on a new journey. I have learned that through making mistakes I create new techniques and make new experiences that result in greater creative growth. Sometimes I need to take a step back to better see what is in front of me. It’s similar to life; new creations need to be seen and recognized.
Does the movement in your work have a symbolic implication?
The movement has to do with emotions in my work. For a long time, I had been thinking about what I would like to represent as an artist, what would interest me as an artist, what effects I wanted to achieve. Finding my own language and expressing my feelings and the feelings of those around me, especially emotions, has been a longstanding theme in my work. Over time, I have found that it is increasingly difficult to have a conversation with someone and exchange ideas. We need to nurse our possibilities of reading expressions, relate, and interact with each other. We should learn and be like children who are not afraid to follow their dreams without any filters. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to express ourselves emotionally.
Perhaps I come from a different time and generation in which it is important to share my feelings with others. In my family, it was important to talk about everything, it was important to make the space and time for that. Now I see that having time and space for emotions is rarer and rarer. It’s like you have to put them aside and produce them; have an image of yourself instead of simply be yourself, being brave enough to have your individuality. Nowadays, everybody wants to be a unique personality, a special individual. Everyone acts “one of a kind” but ends up being “many of a kind”, if you know what I mean.
Under the pressure of social networking, social media, the pressure of being liked and cherished – the usual conundrum of surface versus authenticity and depth?
Everybody strives so hard to appear to be special, but then nobody is special at all because they’re all doing the same thing. Therefore, it is particularly important for me to connect and express human emotions in simple forms and colors. It’s crucial to find time and space in this world to express thoughts and energy. I ask myself almost as a therapist would, what makes us human and what values do we want to teach our children for their future? Because of this overflow of information in social media and social pressure, we need to focus on what we really need. I think that nowadays art is a necessity to find time and space to communicate and to connect spiritually…
We shouldn’t be afraid of our imperfections or not going with the flow. Our differences make us unique and special. How sad would the world be without diverse cultures and religions? Today I realize that it is becoming increasingly necessary for me to express emotions of love, anger and loneliness because we all have the right to live them and express them when necessary.
So, you asked me why the forms look like they’re moving. For me, emotions are like energy and movement. Everything that is moving is energy; even feeling an emotion is energy. Emotions give birth to energy and movement, sharing them is exchanging this energy.
How did you get to the use of Plexiglas to mould these spiral-like shapes and patterns full of colors?
I love Plexiglas, because it is transparent; such quality allows the interplay between seen and unseen, through light and background. It’s very difficult for an artist to do this because it’s like creating a world that wouldn’t otherwise exist. The forms change a lot depending on the way you look at them. The shapes and forms in my current work change with the shadows on the wall behind them also by using different lighting. The background becomes a part of the painting or sculpture, connecting it to its surroundings like the human body with its soul. Very often these emotions and thoughts are my own or others I have picked up on, which have been emphasized through different perspectives. Emotions are born from both good and bad experiences. They can give you different ideas which other people can also have. My work is a lot about connection – because I think all of us are connected energy-wise. Sometimes it’s just, you know, how you want to see it, the colors you see, the frequency you see; and the side you see, they’re all different.
How would you describe your creative process?
Usually, when I work, I don’t think about how people will look at it – I just do it for myself. During the creative process I don’t really see what I am doing. I just follow my instinct and the feeling that is necessary to express and show what I see. I have dedicated a lot of time to experimentation, it has been a necessary thought process. Even now I feel that there is always space for growing, learning, and connecting filtered material transforming it into new meaning. One of the reasons I love being an artist is that you never stop learning and growing.
How do you see your role as an artist before the public eye?
I think that to be an artist you need a lot of courage to just be yourself and communicate visually what is important to you. I also believe this not only as an artist, but also as a human being. We all have a voice; it is our responsibility to use it. I am very pleased that I was given the opportunity to take part in an important group exhibition in January 2017 at the European Parliament in Brussels for the Remembrance Day, curated by Ermanno Tedeschi, called “The sign of the Remembrance”.
My greatest challenge is to look back one day and feel confident that I tried to make a difference. I believe that art is always a mirror of the times and society we are living in. Its beauty is relative and reflected differently, this is what makes art unique and gives us the freedom to speak and create freely. I don’t want to be limited as we are all only passersby in this world and won’t live forever. Sometimes I think we forget about our mortality; we will be lucky if there is any memory outliving us at all one day. I would like to live my life as an artist, a woman and as a mom. I want to be a person my daughter can be proud of. I want her to be able to say: “This is my mum and I know who she is”. Family is very important for me; it is my foundation.
Who are the artists who had an influence, or are you inspired by?
I love Mirò and Georgia O’Keeffe. She loved nature like I do. She spent a long time in the New Mexico desert where a lot of her work was created. Georgia O’Keeffe was also recognized as one of Americas most important and successful artists. She was recognized as the “Mother of American modernism”. In my forms and spirals, you can see a lot of feminism. Being a woman in the art world I can see how difficult it must have been for her. I didn’t want to lose my femininity working. I think it’s very present and crucial to express. So yes, O’Keeffe was very influential to me.
I also love Josef Albers; his color theories and the different techniques he experimented with that are particularly important still today). And the Futurists, especially Giacomo Balla who influenced my work in terms of dynamics and movement. I saw Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni at the Metropolitan Museum in NY. This work influenced so many artists. I also love Carla Accardi and the use of her color base, the energy flow in her paintings. She was also a woman who lived and worked in the Fifties which was hard and exceedingly rare in terms of success in certain contexts. Her repetitive patterns are iconic.
Let’s get back to your works… I must confess that when I looked at them the first time, I had the impression of looking at an act of freedom with the hypnotic quality of an object for which you do not care about the meaning at all costs. I just felt that I was enjoying the experience without caring much for a hidden meaning or subtextual implications. Just like a liberating aesthetic experience breaking free from a preconceived notion of usefulness.
It’s nice to hear it put it like this. Every artist would love to hear that their art has created this kind of feeling.
This is why colors are so important in my work, especially primary colors.
How do you associate emotions with colors?
Colors come from my intuition. I love blue and red and fluorescent colors in particular because of the way they catch the light. That’s why I used these colors in my sculptures. With plexiglass you only need a ray of light to feel the energy of color. This is sometimes how emotions are created too, all it takes is a little spark. It’s like someone turning on a light.
How do you proceed from the idea to the design to the making of the object? Each object is unique, of course…
Yes, each object is unique. It’s impossible for crafted objects to be the same.
I usually do sketches of what I want to make: spiral or movement forms. I try to refine them – it’s the same but somehow different, sometimes it can look similar, but it is never the same.
Different colors, more layers… work becomes like a ritual, a sort of meditation. I am always experimenting new techniques to change the form slightly. The form is very often similar, but I try to use diverse ways of expressing it. Sometimes I experiment with paper: I cut it out, bend it, and move it around to see what it looks like before working the plexiglass. I have recently begun to experiment with new materials like clay and metal to create my forms. The forms I have created over time, beginning with my zebra paintings, are present in all my works, expressing my best movement, energy, and thoughts. At first glance, my work seems to be a chaotic mixture of elements, but upon closer observation one can see that all of the pieces are placed in a specific way to create new movements.
Here the layers are separated from each other and contain the colors…
Each layer is painted, and the final effect is created with different shades because the intensity of each color is different. The color effect also depends on the number of brushstrokes you use, this too changing the intensity.
There is also music in your works – I see and hear music together with movemen. This is called “Music 4 tunes”.
I love this title, I wanted to convey the emotions through the movement inspired by music progression. Here, the layers are joined together but each one catches the light individually like a single layer.
I play the piano… music naturally plays a part in my painting. It is like music that begins small and then grows. Like a crescendo, it expands and becomes more intense. My works are deeply inspired by music. It is something you can feel intensely but not something you can see. It’s something I always try to put on paper on plexiglass. Imagine yourself trying to take a picture of different thoughts, memories and moments in your life and then putting them on paper.
These lines, these patterns, while reflecting what we can see in nature, are transformed into artificial, balanced patterns in the painting or the sculpture, combining nature’s dynamic forms, music and thought.
There is a lot of music, I’m glad it is visible and perceptible. If you look at the colors, they’re black and gold, and the triangles express the music from my piano. I tried to catch this fleeting moment and turn it into a permanent form.
How do you feel about the change we are experiencing from human to digital and how emotions can match this big shift?
I think the most important thing is what differentiates us as humans. What makes us different from computers and technology? It is having the possibility to express ourselves emotionally, but also to have empathy, free will and the possibility to choose the space and environment we want to live in. This is something we should work on tirelessly starting now and continuing without forgetting what differentiates us as humans.
As an optimist and an artist, it is important to me to share and dare. I believe that we live in a time of change and not all technology is bad, it just depends on what we do with it. Information is quickly made readily available to people, but we must be careful about the quality of this information.
My dream and vision are to use our knowledge and technology to live a better life together without losing our love and respect for all living things.
© Photos: Courtesy of the artist
To know more about Brigita Huemer Limentani: www.brigitahuemer.com
Galleria Muciaccia Contemporary
Catalogues and bibliography:
Brigita Huemer Limentani, Emotiva, 2018 Carlo Cambi editore
Brigita Huemer Limentani, Black & White (photography)
Brigita Huemer Limentani, Kia Orana (photography) Brigita Huemer Limentani – Angelica Romeo Arte in circolo, Galleria Muciaccia, Roma.
La lettrice immaginaria 