interview
Could you tell us a bit more about your background? How did you go from literature to painting and art?
“When everything is loose and in constant motion,
everything reacts with everything else,
everything is constantly in process,
nothing is really finished
and if time and space are only fixed ideas,
then deception and change are
Confusion and coincidence."
This fast pace of life in nature and our society, as well as the rapid digital progress, require a stop, a standstill, a retreat. My analogue answer to this is painting. Because my words are not enough.
I studied literature (and theater, film and television and psychology) and wanted to write myself at some point. That's what I did in the beginning: poetry, short prose, book reviews, articles for daily newspapers and literary magazines. The acquisition of knowledge drives me. I am curious and inquisitive and want to see what is behind the curtain, under the water's surface, above the clouds.
I gave birth to two children and the existential questions that concern us all became more and more clear. How can I explain to my children who we are? Who am I? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? What is our goal?
I had to put down my pen and pick up a brush because what I want to understand and explain is so complex that I cannot put it into words. We cannot think the world through to the end. It cannot be grasped with the mind. Language is usually unambiguous, controlled by the mind and elevates us to a conformist level. Painting, on the other hand, deviates from the norm. It leads from the depths into the depths of an experience of being. It is a more open form of communication that is grasped with other senses and allows more scope and freedom. This is about experiencing and not understanding.
In non-objective painting I can show a part of what I don't understand but want to understand. I don't know what I'm painting, but I see it as a small subjective section of a large overall process that is constantly undergoing morphological change, and I take the liberty of making a section.
Therefore, the triad names of my paintings such as HONO BADI NISS and DULUSCH ET IGANI are to be understood more as sound or frequency and are intended to indicate the inner idea of things. There is indeed a world behind this world. And it is constantly in motion. As a philosopher without words, I try to make frosted glass permeable.
What is your personal goal as an artist?
I think it's a question of definition.....goal always means that something stops somewhere. You can reach a goal, but I don't see art as something with a beginning and an end. For me, being artistically active is an ongoing process and a never-ending story, so to speak...
For me, the idea of transformation and the question "What can I do with this stuff, how can I use it, how can I transform it?" is always there. And putting an idea into action once it has been conceived is a great need that cries out for fulfillment. I also have no other choice because I cannot imagine a life without art in some form. It is as if it is stuck in me. As an artist, you have developed a certain way of looking at the things around you and you cannot simply put it aside.
The artist is a thermometer, barometer, reflector and projector of mostly unconscious images and ideas. He has different tasks: to look at time critically, to create something that has never existed in this world before, to reach people and sensitize them. So I have a privilege and a task. I have been given tentacles and I want to do good, valuable work and of course be paid accordingly.
How can I do good work? By constantly questioning myself and my art: Is my work/painting authentic? Present? Strong enough? Unshakeable? Is it consistent? Does it speak its own language? Is it alive?
As a painter, I have not made it my task to paint beautiful and authentic pictures. But they should be authentic and unflinching. That is my aim.
My focus is on development and change - in life and in art. As a free spirit, this requires me to constantly renew myself and review myself and my work. I mature in my art - and my art matures in me, that's how it should be.
There is a very beautiful quote by Henry David Thoreau. I have written this on birthday cards to so many people (not just artists!!!): "What lies before us and what lies behind us is nothing compared to what lies within us. When we take what lies within us out into the world, miracles happen."
I want to be an inspiration for the people around me with my art and my existence. That's where the journey takes me... That's why I look forward to people, projects and ideas that cross my path.
Tell us about the colors on your palette and anything that inspired you.
I'm a painter at heart, those are my roots, and that's where I keep going back to. But as soon as the given frame becomes narrow, I have to go and move three-dimensionally in space. Then I make sculptures, photograph them, edit the photos digitally and bring them back into a two-dimensional plane. It's like a journey.
I always want to try something new. If I know how a picture or a technique ‘works’, then it becomes boring for me. After all, I want to develop further. That doesn't mean that I don't take everything I've learnt into account. Certain techniques that work well flow into my new work.
These excursions away from the canvas are always incorporated into my work. For example, I spent two years creating unique fashion pieces with four other creative women. That was a great experience, a bubbling kitchen of ideas, and my preoccupation with fabrics, leather and skins has stayed with me to this day and can be found again and again in my sculptures and sewn papers.
Many of my works have to do with transformation and creation, but that is also logical and coherent for me because that is what I am interested in. For example, in 2017 I started a series of works on the theme of ‘Being in spaces that don't exist’. This group of works was based on two three-dimensional objects that I placed in the room in dialogue with each other. I then photographed these (analogue) sculptures, edited the photo digitally and printed it again digitally. Finally, I completely labelled them again, painted them and brought them back to the analogue level of painting.
The ‘beings in spaces that are not spaces’ are on a meta-level, in a world beyond. In undefined spaces (because they are in process). I try to give an idea of possible processes that could take place in non-obvious areas - between this world and beyond.
And what can I say about my painting? I do what I have always done. This is my home base, my safe territory. Just paint. Create. Allowing process. Penetrating, interweaving layers, organising open compositions or letting them organise themselves, condensing, extracting, obscuring... I favour oil, like the large format... Between conscious choice and coincidence....and then sometimes figurative associations come to mind.
I gave them more space last year. For a long time I have been asking myself the question: what should I depict when I paint figuratively? Till Eulenspiegel, the jester from my hometown, came to mind. It should be foolish and playful.
At this year's summer academy with Markus Lüpertz, I worked on a series of naive-figurative paintings. These works on paper, all in 100 x 70 cm format, are entitled. ‘I am ready for miracles’. Here, too, the focus is on change and development, this time in relation to gender and gender roles, identity and the individual. Humorous and sometimes provocative. I can't say yet whether this was just an excursion or whether I will continue to work on it.
And what else do I do? I draw small, complex stories that accompany my work. That's my drawing, my storytelling, my diary, my diary, in black and white, but they're all still in my drawer ...
And then, of course, I can enjoy the technical progress and experiment with various digital image editing programmes. Of course, this opens up new worlds for me and my transformation theme. Wonderful!
You painted an entire series on sheet music. How important is music to your work?
Music is a monster and a hummingbird. No other art form touches me as quickly, directly and immediately as music. Music manipulates me like no other medium. It penetrates my body and immediately sets me in motion.
I have loved dancing (well and happily) and singing (badly and secretly) all my life. Music is like a medicine, a pill, a drug that I have to handle/dose carefully. For me there is good music (liveliness and vitality) and bad music that can evoke good and bad feelings (sentimentality and aggression).
The sheet music was a lucky "flea market find"; the material and its history inspired me. The content is so dense and fragile: handwritten notes and glued, repaired pages. You wonder who has already worked with these notes and under what conditions, and you are reminded of a time before the throwaway society. I can hardly read the notes myself, but I can add my artistic signature in oil to them, and we are back to the process of transformation, change, renewal.
What is the most challenging part of your job?
Fishing from the sea of possibilities... Choosing from the range of means, making permanent decisions, is sometimes exhausting. When I look at the painting: nothing is too big, too small, too ugly, too colorful - you can paint with anything you can put in a paint pot, there are endless possibilities to choose from. There is nothing that is impossible. There are no limits. You have to remember that we painters are dealing with the impossible. It's just a matter of being involved in the process and playing along. It's about getting into a state that leads away from "I want to paint a picture" and towards true experience.
The next big challenge is to deal with being an outsider in society. You are in a special bubble that only a small percentage of the world's population belongs to, and very few people understand what you are doing, let alone that it is meaningful. Painting (or visual art in general) is a lonely "job" and you never really know if you are doing the right thing. There are no road signs and markers to show the way. Everyone has to find their own way. Once that is done, you have to let go of the painting and the process, let go and take full responsibility for the work.
What inspires you?
By walking through the world with open eyes and ears in search of inspiration. Maybe it's a bit like this: the artist has the ability to wander through the world without losing touch with reality, and he can bring something back from "there". However, "from then on" this is subject to different legal evaluation criteria. Almost anything and anyone can be an inspiration for me, conversations, books, nature, special materials, rooms and spaces. And of course I accompany other artists in their exhibitions and studios and follow their work on Instagram or Clubhouse.
So I am influenced by everything and everyone all the time. For me the more important question is: under what conditions are we ready for inspiration?
In my experience, inspiration always comes spontaneously and unexpectedly. Often when I'm doing very mundane work. I think you just have to be open and relaxed when looking for inspiration; I call it "on air in off-space". Inspiration itself cannot be forced, but the circumstances in which inspiration occurs can be influenced. Certain synapses in the brain have to be connected, which is an involuntary process. It's always about input and output and the individual "in-between" that manifests itself in an artistic result. For me, a painting or a sculpture or even music is a living organism that grows out of itself.
What advice can you give to aspiring artists?
No one is born a master. Good artists have always worked harder than the average to achieve this with patience and persistence. They need commitment, perseverance and a high tolerance for frustration. You should be passionate about what you do.
“Only he who burns himself can light a fire in others” – Augustine.
The path is often rocky and exhausting and sometimes requires tsunami energy: being driven, falling, getting up and crowning, being discouraged, being alert, being bold and present. Being absolutely loyal and grateful to the people who help you on your path. But if that's what you really want, it won't be difficult and you can regain full energy from the creative process. Just as important as progress in art technique, refining, supplementing and expanding your work is your personal development.
Accompany your colleagues in their exhibitions and studios. When you talk to artists about their work, you are almost always very close to the people, their ideas, their visions, what drives them. It is always about the essentials. It is important for your own work because it helps you to reflect on it and inspires you. You have to learn who you are so that your art is personal and has integrity and authenticity, whether you are painting, singing or dancing. It should be entirely yours.
Know your frequency. Play your frequency. Transmit on your frequency.
Do you have a "philosophy" that guides your creative expression?
So what?
There is no right and no wrong.
Trust the process.