Lita Cabellut (b. 1961) is considered one of the leading Spanish artists our time. Since the age of 19, she has lived in the Netherlands, where she was named Artist of the Year in 2021. Among those with the general public, she is best known as a juror for Project Rembrandt, a 2019 and 2020 Dutch TV series in which contemporary amateur painters competed creatively.
Okay, for a moment she was afraid she would have to pose for this story in a red flamenco dress and with castanets, but even without such attire you can tell by looking at Lita Cabellut that you are dealing with a real and very special Spanish woman. Slide into her kitchen table for a conversation and, as an interviewer, you immediately know that you have met the woman of your life. Wow, that fire you see burning in her eyes all the time as she tells her life story and talks about her art. And, gosh, that loving temperament too with which she mothers her children and her eight collaborators in her beautiful studio cum residence in the heart of The Hague. No more than logical, then, that they all adore 'r, and as if by magic, within minutes you yourself are too.
As unfettered and freedom-loving as she has been from a young age, at the same time, the warmth that La Lita radiates is self-evident. 'I can't hide it, eh: I am and remain a typical Spanish mom. Constantly on the go for everyone, and therefore also a busybody. I count all the people I love as my immediate family. And family to me is everything, everything, everything. Even though I'm up to my neck in work, I always want to know if someone is taking good care of him or herself and if I shouldn't fry an egg for him or her soon. Laughs, "Well, that's my cultural heritage. It's in my DNA, after all.' That DNA of Lita Cabellut is otherwise a picture to behold as well. She has a unique talent as a visual artist. Moreover, at 62, she is still the unpolished and ravishing presence that betrays much of her Sinti heritage. And partly because she roamed the red light district of Barcelona as a street kid until the age of 14, she draws on a life experience that to this day has produced nothing but wisdom, positivism and incredible drive.
'I AM NOT A VICTIM OF MY YOUTH'
Lita: "I see my existence as a series of long walks through constantly changing landscapes. Like everyone else, there were obstacles for me along the way. Still, I knew I had to keep walking in each landscape, because everything I experienced there was only temporary. My childhood shaped me, not traumatized me. I naturally have the attitude to accept things as they come. And also to let them go again. They didn't cling to me. I'm not a victim of what ever happened to me. Lita owes her positivity in part to the "magic key" she says she was born with. As a young outcast abandoned by her mother, she picked stars from the sky, which she donated on the sidewalk to passersby. And also quite apart: she ate flowers to feed on beauty. The paintings in her impressive, internationally exhibited and sold oeuvre, are among the results. 'In my work I can make tangible that beauty I have always sought. It is no longer just a canvas of paint, or ordinary matter. It has become energy, emotion, imagination.'
As an adolescent girl, Lita was adopted by a wealthy Madrid family, a completely different, because posh, existence in which she was very happy for many years. Nevertheless, she said goodbye to that "landscape" for good at nineteen when she got the chance to study at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. At that art school, at the time the most highly regarded in Europe, another new world lay at her feet. 'I didn't speak Dutch or English and was otherwise a foreign bird there, but I fell in love with the Netherlands right away. All the different nationalities living together here and the open, humanitarian nature of society, I loved it.' Even now Lita can wax lyrical about how much she holds her second homeland in her heart. "I even dream in Dutch. So when she is once again in Spain for weeks for an exhibition or for work consultations, the loss of her studio home in The Hague and her second home in Bergambacht chafe relentlessly. It is in the latter, surrounded by two thousand self-planted trees, that she usually spends her weekends. The little spare time that for once is not completely filled with painting and watching over her family.
Question to Lita: is it conceivable that - after all, only a few years away from her state pension - she will one day give up her artistry altogether and enjoy a well-deserved retirement. Her answer: 'Ha, that question does occupy myself as well. Why do I keep going, I'm tired at night like everyone else, right? But I simply can't help myself. Work is the extension of my breath. If I stop doing art, I stop living, I'm sure.' But I do see a knitting on your couch over there. So at least you already have a hobby, Lita. 'Hahaha, that's not knitting. Those are just my socks!'
Rational
