About my abstract painting and performance
I explore color in its various aspects, its essence. Take red, for example: depending on the intensity of the paint application, scarlet can be as delicate as a rose petal or wild and fiery. What forms does red take? What rhythm does red have, what does it demand, how does it sound? How does it behave when its hue changes? I encounter all these questions in the course of the creative process. I am not concerned with answering them intellectually or systematically. They arise anew and differently each time I “trace” the colors.
Color is my counterpart and at the same time a part of me. I experience it as a natural being with different characters. Through intensive dialogue with color, it becomes physically tangible, it expands—beyond the pictorial space, it becomes movement and dance. In my performances, I move within its field—namely, in the projections of my images.
I let the colors speak through my body like different personalities and tell my story in the light of their projection. Nature is my source of inspiration. During the painting process, experiences of nature resurface and reveal themselves atmospherically in the image. In both dance and painting, I am interested in working with contrasts.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
The image can contain different forces: horizontal and vertical, surface and line, movement and stillness, power and delicacy, density and transparency…
For me, painting is a meditative process that takes time. Usually, the form develops from the color during the painting process: When I work with hammered metal or gold leaf, which already strive for form due to their nature, I start with the form. It changes and is broken up, moved by the color. If the form is too dominant in the picture, the color can no longer “breathe.” I try to bring the two poles of color and form—the fluid and the solid, dissolution and structure—closer together in the picture.
This allows the color to gain depth. When developing a performance, I start with a narrative, a character who moves in one or more atmospheres or color fields. I look for movements that correspond to him. In this way, he takes on form and rhythm. Or—I first trace the movements and forms that the body takes on. They “fill with color.”
In this way, I find expression through movement and a story emerges. I invite the viewer to follow their perception, to immerse themselves in the color atmospheres of my paintings, to remember what is delicate, powerful, forgotten…
With my performances, I want to surprise and enchant the audience.
Munich, December 6, 2016
