The Lines and Patches of Hildegarde Handsaeme

Keeping the female figure at the heart of her art, self-taught Belgian painter Hildegarde Handsaeme examines passion, confusion and communication through simple black lines and carefully placed patches of bright colour. Her characters are often involved in acts of communion. Sometimes they can be seen thinking deep and hard.

Musical harmony is a common theme as well. The keys of the piano, the strings of the guitar and the bell of the saxophone merge with the human body and create the vision of a beautiful cosmos.

Hildegarde prefers not to be categorised in any particular school of painting or linked to any specific artist. Her overall message remains one of love and tenderness.

“My work is very personal and shows that art has no boundaries,” the artist states on her website. “Art is not subject to strict laws, is unseizable and difficult to put into words.”

Hildegarde Handsaeme was born in 1958 in the Belgian city of Kortrijk and now lives in the town of Overijse. Her work has been exhibited in Antwerp, London, New York, Amsterdam and other places.