Gallery Alma Blou
Lusette and Herman Verboom celebrated the opening of their Kas di Alma Blou Gallery & Gift shop in 1996. Located in a striking blue-purple rental property on the Rouvilleweg in Otrobanda, it was a fairly unusual location at the time. A bit out of the way by local standards. Yet very soon an ever-growing clientele found its way there. At Kas di Alma Blou Gallery and Gift shop exhibitions of local artists were organized, but it was also the place specializing in locally made craft as gift or souvenirs. After a few years, a sculpture garden was added, art loan was offered, and came a frame shop with maestro framer Otmar Jennie. After a while, the building became a bit too restricted for the expansion of ideas and events. So, after ten years of renting, the owners decided it was time for a new location of their own. Their eye fell on Landhuis Habaai.
Lusette and Herman have the courage to purchase a plantation house, Landhuis Habaai, which has been empty for many years and was considerably dilapidated, and transform it from ruins into a monument for art in the twenty-first century. Visual arts are now displayed in the specious main building and original handcrafts has their own space in the folk art store. This all come together in this historic building at the Frater Radulphusweg at the outskirts of Willemstad where art lovers undeniably know to find their way.
Themes and materials used by the featured artists vary widely, but all art has a Caribbean energy. Artists are inspired by the colors, architecture, people, underwater life, the fresh wind, mythology, the Caribbean Sea and the local landscape. All of this diversity triggers the artist’s imagination found in their resulting body of work.
Gallery Alma Blou has become the oldest and largest art gallery in Curaçao, featuring local and Caribbean art.