We recently connected with Birgit Huttemann-Holz and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Birgit, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Taking a risk is the fastest way to learn something new and to be propelled forward in your life, your aesthetics, your experience. Taking a risk is an immanent step in the creative process. It is being curious and fascinated by the challenge, the possibilities, the steep learning curve in failure. Accepting the unexpected and working with it is the path to progress. To be an artist is to be courageous, to be a risk taker.
Every day, I enter my studio and let go of expectations.
I have no plan, no sketch, maybe an idea, I simply grab a color that speaks to me at that moment. I make a mark, joyous full of curiosity where this process will lead me.
I do not think of the end product. Painting is a sensory pleasure of bathing in color, pushing hues, creating depth, closing my eyes, and trusting my gestural lines. I know that lyrical artefacts, the unexpected, will enhance the reading of my painting.
To be vulnerable and daring at the same are core qualities of the creative process.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a fine artist and a musician. My energetic works show a lush world, where nature is in constant celebration. The lyrical abstractions reflect an intense relationship with the surrounding landscape, an intimate experience of wilderness which mirrors alluring and alarming oneself.
I have exhibited nationally and internationally, and I am represented in Germany, The Netherlands, and in the US. My work was selected for the Saatchi Collections “New This Week” 2014-2022; The Other Art Fair, Brooklyn, NY, 2017- 2019, and The Other Art Fair Chicago, IL, 2018, 2019, 2023.
I work primarily in acrylic painting and encaustic monotypes in my studio in Detroit.
Lucky me, I was selected for the NG Art Creative Residency in Provence, France, 2023.
Thus, I will spend three weeks in September working and printing with wax and pigments in a historic olive mill that has been beautifully converted into an international artist residency at the foothill of the Alpilles National Park.

I am also a musician. In my youth, I was the front singer of several garage bands in Germany. I married my love and band college Maik Huettemann and followed him to the US, where he did his post doc in molecular biology and biochemistry. 24 years later we are still living in the US, Maik is a professor at Wayne State University, and we have 3 beautiful and happy children, who are roaming the world. We still play music together, mostly late at night or when we are camping in the wilderness at the Au Sable River with the stars as our audience.
Last year, after an injury prevented me from making art, I learned to work with a digital audio workstation program that is used to record and produce music. I started to write music again and in December 2022, I released my first album “Darling Tonight” on all streaming platforms under my pseudonym “brightstroke”.
Literally, during the day I play with colors and at night I play with sounds, and I am happy doing this.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My goal as an artist or a human being is to stay curious and passionate. It is not the subject matter, style, medium or the genre in painting or music that defines my art, it is first and foremost my center of interest: The human condition: life and its fragility.
My work is vibrant, complex, and meant to make intimate connections with the audience, invoking both my vision and feeling of a world where beauty and vulnerability are the touching keystones.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I am living a beautiful, fulfilling life. I always knew that I wanted to become an artist. I am living my dream. I am immersed in my dreams, and I am challenged everyday by my curiosity and passion to express how I see and feel. “The secret to creativity lies not in the so called higher cognitive process but in the dreamlike reconfigurations of emotional meanings that takes place unconsciously” – Siri Huvstedt
This is a gift, a meditation on life and love, every day anew.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.brightstroke.com
• Instagram: @brightstroke
• Other: on all streaming platforms such as Spotify, apple music etc you can listen to my music under the name/ alias brightstroke