PROFILE
My why
To relate with others in consideration of resonance and world relations.
The purpose of my art is first and foremost to meet my own need to relate creatively to others. I have been fortunate in my life to be able to work artistically in many different ways. Without wanting to prescribe a balance here, I had the chance to try out experiences with sculpture, performance, architecture, photography, cinema, sound and music, and texts. After years away from painting, painting has now become a priority for me as a means of expression. It's a way of dealing with the topics of resonance and relationships with the world, which have been on my mind since my youth.
CREDO
"Life is most precious if resonant, resonant with the very different.”
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My elixir of life
In search for resonance and world relation in my art is as well motivation as it is motive.
I have to creatively discuss the development of my world relationship, also beyond myself, with the people with whom I am connected in the narrower sense, up to those with whom I am in contact via social media around the world. I try to express what resonates with me and hope that others respond with resonance. Even if this resonance remains unavailable (as H. Rosa says it must remain), I am happy if it succeeds. This is my elixir of life.
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Even if I only show close-ups in my portraits and face compositions, I am concerned with what lies behind them: the person and their relationship to the world or, in the case of face compositions, the fragility of the relationship and the lack of resonance. My search for resonance and a relationship with the world also occurs in my art in a double sense, as a motivation and as a motif.
My Motivation
Hoffnung auf Fortschritt und mein Beitrag dass sich dieser ereignen
kann.
Ich hoffe auf Fortschritt, nicht im Sinne von Technik, sondern von dem Offenbarwerden des Besseren. Wie der Soziologe Hartmut Rosa sehe ich dieses Bessere in einer Verstärkung der Resonanz. Wir können uns anrühren lassen, wir können auf den Anderen zugehen und in Wechselwirkung treten, wir erleben, wie dies zu einer Transformation führt.
Auch der Aspekt der Unverfügbarkeit, den Rosa nennt, erlebe ich. Sich in eine Resonanz-Haltung zu bringen bedeutet auch zu akzeptieren, dass Resonanzerfahrung unverfügbar bleibt. Im Aushalten dieser Unverfügbarkeit entsteht erst der notwendige Natalitätsraum für das Angerührt werden und das Neue. In alldem kann ich und will ich den ersten Schritt tun, als Mensch und als Künstler. Dabei erfahre ich ein mehr an Resonanz und eine Verbesserung der Weltbeziehung. Dass sich dieser Fortschritt ereignen kann, motiviert mich immer aufs Neue und inspiriert mich.
Questions about my work
My "what" and "how"
What makes me choose whom I portray has different motivations. This also includes research, e.g. on the Internet. Usually, the composition is then sketched in Photoshop.
I'm not worried about the colour in advance, except that I'll use my neon-coloured palette. Only when I am satisfied that I have found a satisfactory composition do I move on to the next step and apply the acrylic paint to paper or canvas.
I usually work on 10 or more works at the same time. Each application of colour is individual and only when it has dried do I start with the next colour. This creates many layers. The different degrees of opacity are essential to the rendering. Sometimes I also use a gel to bring the colours into a mayonnaise-like state. I usually apply 90% of the paint vigorously with the painting knife. In doing so, I use the cacophonic inexactness that always arises from this technique for the design.
Parts of my story
1976
An Early 'Study' of Art History
"Colorful" is probably the adjective that best describes my career path. Art has always played a role in it. This began in my youth, shaped by regular museum visits and a creative drive that I was encouraged to explore. It led to majoring in art during my senior years at a German Gymnasium and, with it, my first "study" of art history—focusing particularly on the period from Impressionism to the contemporary art of the 1970s.
During this time, I adopted the conviction that one should turn away from the figurative; if a canvas was to be considered at all, only abstract compositions felt justified. Jackson Pollock’s fascination with the process was especially influential for me. It was an era where I experienced the works of Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik at the documenta. Within this context, I began to take an interest in film and animation.
1981
Studies of film and television production in the USA
This led to studying film and television production in San Antonio, Texas in 1981, originally to major in film directing. During that time I also took a number of art classes and learned many of the crafting techniques that I still use today.
1985
Film studies in Chicago in a master's program
When I continued my film studies in Chicago in 1985 towards a master's degree, one of my professors was Dan Sandin, who worked on the first VFX animation for the Star Wars films with Larry Cuba. From him, I learned how to program rudimentary computer animations. Sandin was also co-director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory in the US. There, Sandin showed me the Fairlight CVI, one of the first commercially available digital video samplers and sequencers. That gave me a start-up business idea, which I founded as Take1-Video Productions Inc. in downtown Chicago.
1992
Return to Germany
This started a series of entrepreneurial activities that brought me back to Germany in 1992.
2006
VFX Producer, Pictorion das Werk
Managing Director, Ruhr Sound Studios
It wasn't until 14 years later (2006) that I had the opportunity to get back into the film business and I became a VFX producer for an internationally produced feature film at Pictorion's HQ in Cologne . My tasks also included supporting the digital intermediate work in Vancouver for the same film, as well as managing the Ruhr Sound Studios in Dortmund. But this return to (film) art was also short-lived.
2008
Renewable energy developer for projects and partnerships
After just 2 years, a new series of company foundations with managerial responsibilities began. During this time, the conviction of the urgency of counteracting the climate crisis grew both personally and professionally. The lateral entry into this sector began, so to speak, from scratch, with the development of partnerships and projects for large wind farms and photovoltaic systems in the USA, Canada, Spain and Italy.
My entrepreneurial activities since my studies have always been of very high intensity. In addition to family responsibilities, there was hardly any time for personal artistic creation.
2015
Return to painting alongside full-time work in the field of
renewable energy and hydrogen projects
That only changed when I started painting a larger triptych (3 m x 1 m) for an old friend in Switzerland in 2015. So that this work could be done in a reasonable amount of time, I began setting up a studio in my house. This work became the starting point of my intensive artistic work in painting to this day. Although I had painted pictures in the past years, they remained isolated works. In addition to my full-time work in connection with renewable energy and green hydrogen, I now began to paint for several hours a day. In the last year alone I was able to complete more than 120 works.
It would still be worth telling how the painting of portraits and face compositions came about. For me, the elimination of the self-imposed taboo on figurative painting resulted from the portraits of Francois Nielly. I saw her work in galleries in southern France and was blown away by the power of these neon "close-ups". She still inspires me to this day. For me, it was the discovery that the figurative, of these portraits, stood on its own on canvas, inimitable, with other media and independently as a means of expression. Above all, Nielly's use of a shrill colour palette (which was also taboo for me) allowed me to represent and process (figurative) reality beyond the natural or lifelike.