Description
About me
Professional artist Denise Buisman Pilger (the Artist Abroad) is a frequent globetrotter. Having called Amsterdam, Fort Worth, Montréal and Nagoya home, she takes each relocation as an opportunity to explore the world, gathering inspiration for her urban, hand layered mixed media paintings along the way. Exhibiting and selling her work prolifically in North America, Europe and Japan over the past several years, Denise has proudly exhibited her work at the 2011 Salon de la Société national des beaux-arts at the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris, both the Artist Project and the Outdoor Art Exhibition in Toronto, the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art and galleries in New York, Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto.
Denise's work reflects her love of photography, painting and travel, configured into pseudo-realities of everyday life filtered through her own whimsical creative lens. Fascinated by the urban landscape and the people that populate it, her bustling pastiches of architectural elements are arranged at unusual angles, irregular scale, and not necessarily in their true-to-life configuration.
Her creative practice spans close to two decades, beginning with several years as a professional graphic designer and art director for print media, both in Europe and North America. A sensibility that is reflected in her current body of work, both aesthetically and technically Her creative process involves photo manipulation, acrylic image Tansfer, hand layered mixed media elements and other innovative techniques. Often her pieces are black and white with minimalist color accents, while others abound with color — her visual vocabulary is always unique and always authentic. From her home-based studio, she produces cityscapes that are graphic and contemporary, yet nostalgic.
Originally from Amsterdam, Denise has a -Bachelor of Arts in Illustration from Willem de Kooning Academy of Art.
Work / Education
Denise's work reflects her love of photography, painting and travel configured into graphic pseudo-realities of everyday life filtered through her own whimsical creative lens. Fascinated by the urban landscape and the people that populate it, her bustling pastiches of architectural elements and city life invite us to step into her world, where urban elements are arranged at unusual angles, irregular scale and not necessarily in their true-to-life configuration. Inspired by her globetrotting experiences, which have been numerous and frequent, her cityscapes are at once recognizable, yet somehow surreal.
Her creative process involves photo manipulation, acrylic image transfer, hand layered mixed media elements and other innovative techniques. Working in a variety of scale, Denise creates panels that are graphic, contemporary and yet somehow nostalgic. Often her pieces are black and white with minimalist color accents, while others abound with color - her visual vocabulary always unique and always authentic.
Denise's on-going series of cityscapes, entitled Traveling the World, is deeply personal, paying homage to some of the her favorite places - mostly urban scenes bursting with all that city life involves. Becoming more and more narrative over time, the pieces combined with their titles, allow us a glimpse into the artists mind. As we gaze upon Denise's unique universes we are invited to be shamelessly voyeuristic and encouraged to make up stories of our own.
Merging many photographs into a singular image, Denise offers a unique impression of the cities she's visited during her travels – her perspective capturing the urban land-scape as only a traveler could, highlighting the often mundane, yet essential elements that make up the living, breathing and evolving ecosystem of a city.
We can look for a very long time & still discover new things.
