Baerten Hub

Hub (Huub or Hubert) Baerten is a Belgian artist born in Tongeren (1945). He is a sculptor, assemblage artist, and stained-glass artist. Baerten creates prints exuding a surreal alienation, blending playfulness with soft irony. He assembles wooden elements into human figures. His sculptures reflect a vision where alienation is prominent, often seen as poignant totems. Baerten sometimes portrays humans in a tormented depiction in his work, finding his strongest expression in disillusionment. His sculptures balance between the profane and the sacred, the sculptural and the object-like, and between stillness and motion. Strange figures are characteristic of his style. Baerten taught at PHIKO in Hasselt and the Academy in Tongeren. He settled in a studio in Hasselt, previously occupied by Jos Damien for over thirty years. (Piron)