Retail - St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Encountering cultures – understanding cultures – connecting cultures I travel in the most diverse parts of the world and try to understand people's everyday existence there. Getting to know other cultures and studying the way they think and live represent my own source of quality of life. The impressions I gather on these journeys find their way onto canvas back in the studio. It starts with what inspires me and finds expression in the finished image. In my enthusiasm I pass on that enthusiasm; in liveliness and concentration, vividness and rootedness, I convey the huge importance of seeing things in context, of establishing connections between art and other cultures, of embracing societies that differ from our own, of looking for the new and for the things that draw us together. Key questions here will always be: wherein lies identity and what constitutes integration? Which elements of our own culture will continue to be cultivated and which laid aside? Which elements of the other culture will be adopted and which not? Can I ever "break out" of my own culture or is something of it indissolubly bound up with my personality? I go in for experimental and abstract painting. The new things I am always finding in foreign countries come out afterwards in my various techniques. I do not use traditional paints but prepare my own, using a variety of materials: I mix acrylics, lacquer, and clay with pigments and substances devised by the cosmetics industry. With my medial works, my "Digital Art Painting", I want to show the viewer a different side of art. My artistic creativity is meant to be a reaction to a world that is forever diversifying. I draw my inspiration from world events. Such themes as ways of life, customs, tolerance, values, and religion call upon men and women, in their conscious dealings with their own and the other person's culture, to reflect and to look at things from a different viewpoint. My works are about situations in which two cultures meet, mix, possibly cancel each other out, and emerge in a new form. One world – one love, this is the meaning!