Hilde DeBruyne
Hilde DeBruyne is a Belgian-American artist living in Des Moines , Iowa. She is a sculptor and designer in clay, metal and bronze. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is included in public and private collections .
She has successfully completed multiple public art installations throughout Iowa, California, Minnesota , Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Belgium. Her public art work includes the "Tree of Life , Trees are Poems " (16ft H-20 ft W ) in Johnston ,IA, the “Tree of Life” ( 11 ft tall- 22 ft wide) in Indianola,IA, “Bloom” at Elizabeth Holland Park in Norwalk, IA , "Circle of Life" in West Des Moines, "Hope" in Clive , “ Memorial Garden” at Good Samaritan in Indianola, IA , “Listen to the Wind” in Guthrie Center, IA and several murals such as "The Birth Place of Des Moines" at Principal Park ,the mural "Hope is the thing with feathers" at CISS in Des Moines and "The story of Black Elk" at the Montessori School in West Des Moines.
Her artwork in metal is contemporary in style, often abstracted and organic in nature . She uses mild steel, Corten steel, stainless or aluminum and usually enriches the work with the use of bold, attractive colors. Overall her artwork has an authentic, energetic, warm and welcoming feel to it.
She usually works around a certain theme and explores this theme throughout a series of works . One of them is the “Metamorphosis” series where she explores the different stages of the butterfly and in particular the struggle of the butterfly to emerge out of the cocoon. Another one is the “Migration” Series and the recently explored “Botanical” Series. Her fascination for “Trees” led to her largest creation so far (16ft- 20ft) at Terra Park in Johnston, IA, which is interactive and extremely well received by the Johnston Community.