Works · Series 1999-2002 · 11 works

Period 1999–2002

With these structures, the first visual reception deliberately gives an impression of indiscipline, of disorder. That apparent incoherence irritates the viewer at first and breaks open habits of seeing. Only through intense attention over time, and through the cognitive assembling of the painted fragments, does a coherent whole constitute itself — one that does not merely complement the title of the picture but explains it from the ground up.

Yet even that level of abstraction marked no end point for me. My thoughts at the time circled constantly around the omnipresent legacy of the Old Masters; they would not let me go. Studying the specialist literature, I finally came upon the concept of organic pigments. In that moment a decisive intellectual and artistic turning point took place: something suddenly clicked.

With this breakthrough I sought out my esteemed fellow artist Fritz Kindl, whose deep affinity and passion for the world of pigments I had long known of. Through that exchange I acquired the fundamental craft competence in handling this demanding material: from the precise grinding of the pigments through their optimal distribution to the fine work of taking them up into the respective binder, in order to command the colour thus won.

Various assistantships with significant artists deepened my technical foundation further. Particularly formative was the collaboration with Theo Braun — an outstanding man and a visionary — whose own artistic focus lay on the symbiosis of pigment and oil, but who gave me profound impulses regarding the aesthetics of material.

During that intense phase of working with Theo Braun, however, one fundamental insight crystallised for me: the medium of oil did not correspond to my inherent artistic intention. The long drying processes and the particular intensity of the solvents' smell proved contrary to the dynamic I intended in the process of making. So I pressed my experimental research further and finally came upon transparent acrylic resin. Mixing my own hand-made colour bodies with this entirely transparent carrier medium opened up a wholly new dimension of translucency and materiality.