--- title: Brigitte Klassen Art description: >- Large-scale floral watercolours exploring presence, stillness, and fleeting beauty. url: 'https://www.artsume.com/a/brigitteklassen' type: artist createdAt: '2026-07-10' updatedAt: '2026-08-26' disciplines: - Painting location: 'Gatineau, QC, Canada' website: 'https://brigitteklassenart.ca/' birthYear: 1970 --- # Brigitte Klassen Art *Large-scale floral watercolours exploring presence, stillness, and fleeting beauty. | Painting | Based in Gatineau, QC, Canada* ## Artist Statement Flowers are at the heart of my artistic language, not as symbols, but as subjects that hold presence, movement, and quiet emotional weight. There is something in their nature that insists on the present moment: they bloom, they open, they pass. Painting them is, for me, an act of attention, a way of slowing down and staying close to what is fleeting and beautiful. Through transparent watercolour, I explore how natural forms occupy space: how they lean, open, pause, and press against stillness. Focusing primarily on a large scale, I use the medium’s inherent luminosity to build colour gradually through thin, transparent layers. A wide tonal range, from pale, barely-there highlights to rich, saturated shadows, creates depth and draws the viewer into sustained looking. Negative space is as deliberate as mark-making; it allows each form to breathe and gives the composition its sense of inevitability. My process begins in close observation, studying, sketching, and photographing my subjects before composing paintings that balance structure with fluidity. Realism serves as an invitation to slow down, notice, and feel. Each painting is both an act of exploration and a quiet offering of beauty. ## About Brigitte Klassen is a Canadian watercolour artist based in the Ottawa/Gatineau region, known for large-scale floral paintings that explore presence, stillness, and the quiet dynamism of flowers. Working in transparent watercolour, she brings together technical precision and painterly spontaneity to create works that are at once deeply observed and conceptually considered. She is currently represented by MELT Studio & Gallery, Picton, and Carleton Place Gallery, Carleton Place. ## Curriculum Vitae ### Education - **2026** - Self Taught, Over a decade of Independent Study and practice in transparent watercolour with a focused commitment on large scale floral forms, Independent Study, Ottawa, ON, Canada ### Solo Exhibitions - **2023** - Da Artisti Studio & Gallery, Cumberland, ON, Canada ### Group Exhibitions - **2026** - *MELT Roster Group Show*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2026** - *MELT Roster Group Show*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2026** - *Art in the Park*, Central Park, Ottawa, ON, Canada - **2026** - *Riverdale Artwalk*, Jimmie Simpson Park, Toronto, ON, Canada - **2026** - *Renewal – Juried Group Exhibtion*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2026** - *O Canada – I Love You*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2025** - *Twelve by Twelve*, Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada - **2025** - *Give a Little Bit – Juried Group Exhibition*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2025** - *Artist Roster Show*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2025** - *Renewal – Juried Group Exhibition*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2024** - *Give a Little Bit – Juried Group Exhibition*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2024** - *Artist Roster Show*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2024** - Carleton Place Gallery, Carleton Place, ON, Canada - **2024** - *Art in the Park*, Central Park, Ottawa, ON, Canada - **2024** - *Renewal – Juried Group Exhibition*, Melt Studio + Gallery, Picton, ON, Canada - **2021** - Electric Street Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada ### Collections - Private Collection, Picton, ON, Canada - Private Collection, Ottawa, ON, Canada - Private Collection, Toronto, ON, Canada - Private Collection, Toronto, ON, Canada - Private Collection, Ottawa, ON, Canada - Private Collection, Picton, ON, Canada - Private Colletion, Ottawa, ON, Canada ### Bibliography - **2026** - *"Sunlit Trio" Featured on the cover, May 6, 2026, Vol.196, No.18*, Picton Gazette - **2025** - *"Pretty in Pink" Featured on the cover, June 11, 2025, Vol.195, No.23*, Picton Gazette 2025 ### Gallery Affiliations - **2024–Present** - Carleton Place Gallery, Carleton Place, ON, Canada, Current ## Portfolio ### Blue Crush (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* Saturated and compressed, this work establishes the emotional and chromatic register of the series. The intensified blue introduces pressure and density, grounding what follows in a language of controlled intensity. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Butterfly Waltz (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* A single floral form becomes the site of contained movement. Subtle shifts in gesture and spacing suggest rhythm and breath, emphasizing presence over display. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Under the Pale Tree (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* Stillness defines this piece. A muted palette and open structure slow the visual tempo, inviting sustained attention rather than immediate resolution. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Danse des demoiselles (2024) *Watercolour on Paper* Here, individual elements engage in a loose, shared momentum. Movement emerges through proximity and rhythm, suggesting conversation rather than choreography. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### The Space Between (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* This painting explores relationship through distance and alignment. Forms lean toward one another without merging, creating quiet tension shaped by interdependence. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Ballet du printemps (2024) *Watercolour on Paper* Tension and momentum inform this work. The frilled petals create a sense of perpetual motion, as though the composition was caught mid-phrase, letting the crimson build its own internal light. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Quiet Radiance (2025) *Watercolour on Paper* Restraint allows luminosity to surface gradually. The work holds a calm intensity, where colour and form remain balanced and measured. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Pretty in Pink (2025) *Watercolour on Paper* This piece introduces a softer saturation, using colour as atmosphere rather than emphasis. The composition remains spacious, allowing lightness to coexist with control. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Bubblegum Ballet (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* A heightened chromatic note brings buoyancy to the series while maintaining compositional restraint. Movement is suggested through rhythm and spacing rather than overt gesture. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### La beauté au naturel (2025) *Watercolour on Paper* This work returns the series to its foundation, quiet observation, space as an active element, and a composition that holds its form without effort. What began in intensity arrives here in stillness. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Sunlit Trio (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* Three white oriental poppies open toward the light, their petals glowing softly around deep purple centres. The composition captures the feeling of flowers basking in a warm morning sun, each bloom turning outward in quiet celebration. Together they suggest companionship, balance, and the simple happiness found in shared light. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Queen (2024) *Watercolour on Paper* These irises do not soften themselves. Deep violet and burgundy move through the petals without apology, colour that has long since stopped negotiating with the room. The form opens fully, unhurried. Below, a bud, already decided. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### A Sweet Blush (2024) *Watercolour on Paper* Two roses at different distances from themselves. The larger bloom opens wide, pink deepening toward its centre, warmth gathering where the petals fold inward. The smaller holds its colour evenly, quieter, more contained. Neither is more complete than the other. They exist in the same moment, differently. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Fleeting (2023) *Watercolour on Paper* A hydrangea branch holds its arc long after the season has ended. The petals have dried to parchment — cream, amber, the colour of things that were once vivid and are now something else entirely. Nothing has been lost. The form remains, the structure holds. Only the urgency is gone. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Marking Time (2026) *Watercolour on Paper* The crow stands at the tip of a branch, gaze lifted, neither arriving nor departing. Blue-black feathers hold more colour than certainty allows. It does not rush what is coming. It does not mourn what has passed. It simply watches — alert, unhurried, entirely present at the edge of what cannot yet be named. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### What we conceal (2026) *Watercolour on Paper (unframed)* Part of my Roses in Bloom series exploring perimenopause, this piece reflects the profound changes taking place in the body and sense of self. Through its loosening petals, softening colours, and fading layers, the rose holds what is concealed, changing, and difficult to name. --- ### La beauté au naturel (small version) (2025) *Watercolour on Paper* Three roses, one stem, each bloom at its own moment of release. The petals soften toward the edges, the centre holds its warmth a little longer. In this scale, the intimacy is immediate, you are close enough to notice what is already passing. Presentation: professionally framed with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Winter Reflections (2025) *Watercolour on Paper* Snow falls without sound into a forest that has already gone quiet. The creek does not freeze entirely, it holds on, dark and still, carrying the trees in its surface as though the world has doubled into itself. Everything above is bare. Everything below persists. The cold does not empty the scene. It concentrates it. Presentation: professionally framed with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Clearing Skies (2024) *Watercolour on Paper* The sky does not clear all at once. It opens in stages — pale light pushing through, cloud giving way to blue, the horizon steadying itself. Below, wet sand holds the reflection of what is still becoming. The water moves, but the scene does not hurry. Something in it insists on calm. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa --- ### Rosehips (2023) *Watercolour on Paper* The bloom has given way to something smaller and brighter. Three hips ripen on the stem while the last petal-form softens into autumn. The leaves hold their green a little longer. A single branch, several moments, none of them an ending. Presentation: professionally framed in walnut with non-reflective museum glass by Wall Space Gallery, Ottawa ## Links - **Website:** https://brigitteklassenart.ca/