Carmen Milhous

Born in Germany, Carmen Milhous-Arendt successfully completed her studies at the Fachhochschule in Dusseldorf in painting, design, textiles, weaving and others.
From 1972 she lives in Goes, Zeeland, the Netherlands. Since 2022, after the death of her husband the painter Johannes Milhous in 2022, she lives there alone.
She describes Carmen's colorful paintings as "Lyrical Expressionism". These paintings are created as a kind of diaries with their own poetic visual language. The main theme in Carmen's modern paintings are human figures in vaguely defined landscapes with architectural-looking elements.
Carmen sees the emotion as one of the most important elements of the creative capacity. What she seeks is not reality but the unconscious, the secret of human existence. Painting means to Carmen visualized energy, emotions and spontaneity. This as a constant interplay between intuition and analysis, between dynamism and tranquility, excitement and resignation, order and chaos.
A work process as an emotional balance between perfection and nonchalance, to finally penetrate her inner universe, the Labyrinth of the soul. Her way of painting gives Carmen's works a spiritual character.
She usually works with acrylic paint on a background of stretched cotton or linen.