Barbara Hauser
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Biography

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Barbara Hauser was born in Germany in 1965. Her early interest in art led to a study of art and graphic design in Munich between 1983-1987. Painting became her medium of choice.


Since that time she has sought instruction and inspiration from around the world. Travels have taken her to the far corners of the world, Indonesia, Africa, Holland, Italy, USA, Bali, Mexico and Australia have featured on her travel itinerary. She has a voracious curiosity for the world and its people leading her to observe humanity at close quarters. She is especially interested in the dispossessed, the vulnerable and minority groups within communities.


Her paintings reflect this preoccupation. Subjects vary from prostitutes to strippers to participants in the London Carnival. Her often enormous canvases leap off the wall demanding attention, leaving the viewer in no doubt about the intrinsic importance this painter places on all of humanity. Painted in flamboyant colour, she imbues her subjects with a sense of ownership of their space in the canvas and by implication their space in the world. The viewer comes away from her work in no doubt of man’s capacity to find strength in adversity.

 

During recent travels to Australia, it is no surprise that she has taken an interest in its indigenous people and the lives of St Kilda’s Street Sex Workers. The painting of individuals from these communities is already underway.

 

Last year, Barbara was invited to participate in life drawing classes at Dunmoochin (Clifton Pugh’s gift to the nation, an artist’s retreat at Cottles Bridge, north of Melbourne, Australia). In March 2012, Barbara took up a residency at Montsalvat, Australia’s oldest artist colony. In both places, Barbara quickly became a respected member of the arts community. Her diligence and commitment to her arts practice is exemplary.

 

While at Montsalvat, Barbara painted a portrait of Montsalvat’s long term resident Damien Skipper. This gritty portrait demonstrates Barbara’s ability to capture the soul of her subject in a ‘no nonsense’ honest way. It was shortlisted for this year’s prestigious Nillumbik Prize.

 

Barbara has been drawn back to Australia on several occasions due to the light and space of its environment and the open and welcoming qualities of its people. She has a great deal to contribute to its arts community. Through works such as the portrait of Damien Skipper (above) she adds her unique vision to Australia’s identity.

 

Since 2010 Barbara is living and working in Victoria, Australia. In the last 10 years she finished the following exhibitions here:

 

2011-2012 "London Carnival"

2012-2013 "Gay and Beautiful"

2013-2014 "Aboriginals"

2014-2015 "Fame & Glitter"

2015-2016 "Girls wit Guns & Flowers"

2016-2017 "OZ Movies"

2017-2018 "Uganda"

 

For information about Montsalvat go to their website.
http://www.montsalvat.com.au/

For information about Dunmoochin go to their website.
http://www.dunmoochin.org/

 

Her work has been exhibited at the following galleries around the world;
Gallerie 87, Munich Germany
Kunstforum, Munich Germany
Gallery Schriever, Cologne Germany
Kuenstlerhaus* Munich Germany

 

Strand Gallery, Bali Indonesia
Resim Sergisi, Lefkosa, North Cyprus
Gallery Battaglia, Milano Italy
Gallery Kass, Innsbruck Austria
Theatre des Cupucins, Luxemburg
Artpiece Gallery, Los Angeles USA
Gallery Sannicolo, Munich, Germany
Embassy, Siboya, Thailand
Gallery Viva, Krabi Thailand
Gallery Z, Stuttgart Germany
Dunmoochin, Cottles Bridge Australia
Montsalvat, Melbourne Australia

Convent Gallery, Daylesford, Australia

 

Kuenstlerhaus* is a prestigious institution in Germany. Founded by artists over a century ago, it is one of the oldest art houses in Germany, regularly hosting well known national and international artists.
www.kuenstlerhaus-munich.de

 

Involved in following art fairs;
Eigenart Munich ( Winner of Jury and People’s Choice)
Art Fair in Salzburg, Innsbruck, Milan and Vienna

 

Affiliations
Gruppo 30, Italy

 

Media attention for Barbara Hauser;

Women imprisoned in canvas by Tijon Zeybek (Yeni Duzen, 24th April 2000)

 

What drew my attention first, was a little girl who seemingly had taken refuge in her own body. She had enormous eyes wide open with fear. Even her unruly and unclean hair could not conceal her exquisite beauty; but the expression in her eyes was insufferable, with fear, panic and supplication.

 

Then I saw a woman, a true beauty, reflecting self-confidence, while reaching out towards life. She belonged to the place where she was on the one hand, but she didn’t, on the other. Then I met a geisha girl who seemed to have succumbed to fate, showing no sign of challenge. I searched out clues in her eyes, but found only barbed wires. Women, only women who were all imprisoned in a place with striptease girls and others………..they were all stark naked and their souls were under lock and key……..where did I meet all these women? Not far away, but at an exhibition in Lefkosa…………the German artist Barbara Hauser’s exhibition.

 

A rebel named Barbara Hauser by Yalcin Okut (Avrupa 2nd May 2000)

Who is the confusing, striking artist for whom our press has so much space? An artist we have never heard of, but whose paintings flash lightning in the brain.... I am sure there are other artists who can reflect the human anatomy and psychology so powerfully and successfully, but how many?

 

Barbara Hauser’s art dissociates itself from cheap marketing connections, refusing easy sale ability which is typical of a consumers society, that is shaped up by so-called kinds of art like pop-art, minimalism, op-art etc. Hauser is challenging such values with her powerful intuitions, concept and view of life and mankind, male or female. Thank you Barbara Hauser.

 

Barbara Hauser’s Puzzling Paintings by Asik Mene (Curator) Insan

I was hugely moved and shaken when I met for the first time Barbara Hauser’s paintings at the Salzburg Fair. I was truly shaken, but could not take my eyes off her works despite their alienating impact on me. While tending to escape from the artist’s extraordinary realism on the one hand, I fervently approached her pictures on the other. Now, what was the meaning of this enigmatic dilemma? Soon I found the answer to the question: It could only be the fact that the commonly known rules of power of attraction were reduced to nil at the level of the aesthetical and the emotional as well as the intellectual, that is, the artist had replaced these rules with her own, which I found fascinating………