The personal is universal
In her work, Cindy van Woudenberg explores the relationship between our inner life, psyche, and our body. Through her figurative drawings of bodies, hands, and faces, she exposes existential themes: from our need for compassion and to be seen, our responsibility towards the Other, to the bodily experience of our own consciousness, and our relationship with ourselves. In doing so, she uses body language as an intuitive language that is universally understood.
Her work, primarily in watercolour and pencil, explores the tension between fluidity and control. Through this, she emphasizes the vulnerability inherent in our embodied humanity: our capacity to feel, connect, and express ourselves authentically.
Her artistic practice is nourished by her life experience, her body, and a profound introspection. Her past as an arts therapist in psychiatry, where the psychology of visual language serves as a therapeutic tool, and through the movement of dance is interwoven into her oeuvre. She returned to her art practice in 2017.
“While drawing, I surrender to the liquid pigments and feelings as they appear on the surface. In this intuitive approach, there is a delicate dance between my feeling body and my reasoned rationality.
A space emerges; an in-between space where the line blurs between the autobiographical and my empathy with others. The sensation of a personal as well as a universal experience.
By exploiting this dance with in-between spaces for as long as possible, I give my work control over possible meanings. This process of letting my intuition take the lead is slowly transforming into taking steps towards using my own bodily self as a source of inspiration.”
Cindy van Woudenberg was born at Willemstad, Curaçao, in 1968. She lives and works in Eindhoven, the Netherlands.
Text Margiet Kemper 2023 (translated)
For Cindy Woudenberg, language forms the starting point: body language. The fact that (classical) dance has been essential to her for much of her life explains a lot. Technique is the basis of dance, the complete mastery of the body. Dancers are the living material for a choreographer. The dancer’s expression is a controlled one, one that serves the whole ballet, which is a Gesammt artwork. It is an expression that is not purely personal, as it might be for an artist.
The fact that she has also been a creative therapist in psychiatry also connects the language of the body with the language of the inner self, of the psyche. And so those two worlds of experience lead to her work as an artist, in which body, mind and feeling and the exploration of line, structure, color and materials lead to drawings that have a strong existential character.
Sometimes human existence is expressed in the fragmentary, in the serrated, at other times pain, longing and despair are unequivocally palpable to the viewer. For example, with her work, hands become bodies in their own right. Our hands, we mindlessly use them as our tools, but then suddenly we remember that they are the body itself, that they can express our psyche, our soul if you will.
Just when in the Corona years we no longer had to hold hands, we realized again what it meant to no longer face another through a gesture. Walking hand in hand, a gesture of love, which seems to belong especially to fledgling and consolidated love. Hands as support, as hold, as a caress, as a booster of excitement, hands to give blows with, hands to hold guns with.
In recent self-portraits the viewer is confronted in a penetrating way not so much with her, but with a human being, a woman; the personal and the universal come together in them.
Curriculum Vitae
Current and Upcoming:
2025: “Pictura Projectweken”, werkweken en presentatie in september, Pictura www.pictura.nl , Dordrecht.
Solo:
2022: “on being in*visible”, Solo at Odapark, www.odapark.nl , Venray.
2022: Artist in Recidency (AiR) presentation Lokalen Lichtenvoorde.
2021: “in*visible”, solo at De Kunstpraktijk, Veldhoven.
2021: “Beroering in steen”, Solo at De Compagnie, CHV Noordkade, www.decompagnie.art, Veghel.
2019: “Het VerhAal”; a literary festival, solo-exhibition het Oude Raadhuis , Veghel.
Duo and Groupshows:
2025: “Amuse X KCH”, Galerie Wilms & Kunst Centrum Haarlem, www.amuseart.nl
2025: “Dia after”. Quartair Den Haag.
2024: Tekenkabinet XII, at Projectruimte BMB and galerie Art Singel 100 , Amsterdam organized by www.tekenkabinet.nl
2024: Amuse 2024. Galerie Wilms, Venlo, www.galeriewilms.nl/amuse
2023- 24: “BodyTalk”, Groupshow, Het Nieuwe Domein (museum voor hedendaagse kunst en erfgoed), organised by salonsittard-geleen.nl Sittard.
2023: Big Art, https://bigart.nu Bajeskwartier Amsterdam.
2023: “Buitenkant krijgt van Binnenkant”( the Outer from the Inner), Duo exhibition with Brigitte Picavet, KEG, www.kegschijndel.nl ,Schijndel.
2022: “Tekenkabinet Xtra”, Tekenkabinet, www.tekenkabinet.nl , Galerie with tsjalling, Groningen.
2022: groupshow at Jacobuskerk Renesse, www.kunstschouw.nl Renesse.
2022: “Tekenkabinet X”, Tekenkabinet , www.tekenkabinet.nl, Amsterdam.
2022: “KunstRai 2022” , represented by www.amuseart.nl , Galerie Wilms, Venlo.
2022: “Amuse”, Galerie Wilms, www.amuseart.nl, Venlo.
2021: “KunstRai 2021” , represented by www.amuseart.nl , Galerie Wilms, Venlo.
2021: “Amuse”, Galerie Wilms, www.amuseart.nl, Venlo.
2021: “Tekenkabinet IX”, Tekenkabinet , www.tekenkabinet.nl, Amsterdam.
2021: “Milkaway”, Kunstruimte de Melkfabriek, www.kunstruimtedemelkfabriek.home , Den Bosch.
2020: “Amuse”, represented by Galerie Wilms, www.amuseart.nl , Venlo.
2020: “Kerst Sale WG Kunst”, WG Kunst, www.wgkunst.nl , Amsterdam.
2020: ”Winterkabinet XS ”, Tekenkabinet www.tekenkabinet.nl, Amsterdam.
2020: Amuse 2020, digital , represented by Galerie Wilms www.amuseart.nl, Venlo.
2020: ”Tekenkabinet XS”, (digital and live exhibition) Tekenkabinet www.tekenkabinet.nl, Amsterdam.
2019: “Nasty Women Amsterdam” at De Balie Amsterdam.
2018-2019: “OUR LEGACY”, De Kunstpraktijk Veldhoven.
2018: Development of concept, co-organisation/co-curating of a series of 3 exhibitions “OUR LEGACY” De Kunstpraktijk Veldhoven.
2018: “Ode to Life”, development of an artproject at a hospice, realisation not completed.
2017: “WE CARE” , galerie De Kunstpraktijk Veldhoven.
Publications:
2024: Big Book, 10 years Big Art.
2024: Kunst-stukjes, Jurjen K van der Hoek, https://jurjenkvanderhoek.tumblr.com/post/760250594699182080/buitenkant-krijgt-van-binnenkant-uitdrukking
2024: Catalogus Tekenkabinet XII
2023: Was getekend, article written by Sandra Mackus (dutch pdf)
2023: Jegens & Tevens, article on www.jegensentevens.nl/2023/10/big-art-2023-een-reusachtig-uitje
2023: “Buitenkant krijgt van Binnenkant”, Artist book; about our project together with Brigitte Picavet. Published by KEG Schijndel.
2022: Catalogue Tekenkabinet X.
2022: Cover and inserts “Reproductive and sexual health care in oncology.” Esmee M. Krouwel.
2021: Catalogue Tekenkabinet IX.
2021: Cover catalogue magazine Kunstschouw.
2020: Catalogue Tekenkabinet XS.
2020: Galerij van de tekenkunst, https://wimkranendonk.nl/1793-2/
Grants:
2023: Cultuur Eindhoven, participation Big Art
Education:
2021: Lithography workshop, Basement Press Diepenheim.
2020: Summerschool ; a week organized by the Artist and the Others (Maastricht) and KunstpodiumT (Tilburg)
2020: DIA (Drawing Inventions Academy) a master trajectory led by a.o. Arno Kramer, Dineke Blom and Caren van Herwaarden .
2019: Participant of the monthly Peer Critic Sessions, organized by Kunstpodium T, Tilburg.
1989-1993: Hogeschool Zuyd: Creatieve Therapie Beeldend , Sittard .
1988-1989: Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten `St. Joost`, Breda.