Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Karan
oil and egg tempera on stretched canvas
120 x 80 cm
2012

 This one is another part of my people and their work/vocation. I did choose a musician as you can see quite clearly. I met Karan 10 years ago in Berlin where she and her band partner had an act at one of the many bars. We talked a little bit and I decided she was a very nice woman. Now we sometimes talk in our blogs, it´s a loose contact.

For the painting she told me a few things she likes, she has made and showed me her favoured outfit. At this time I already made up my mind to partner her with a raven (after that she told me she loves crows), who whispers something to her. I think it´s Muninn, the wisdom, the whisperer. I don´t know what exactly he´s telling Karan, but as I know this raven, it´s quite interesting and mythic, full of symbols and dreams. Even her smile tells me that. Maybe she reveals some of that in one of her next songs.
She has all time in the world as she sits there on her Shakuhachi throne, a japanese flute made of bamboo and as unique as every bamboo has naturally grown. It´s some kind of fundament as she learned to play that instrument – it leaded her to lots of other ones, even she wanted to have a guitar in this picture. I´ve seen her play lots of instruments, even a horse scull (that was an interesting experience for me).
And so she sits in a room that isn´t a normal room – leastwise the way it looks. It´s a litte homage to Magritte. So the room looks not as limited as it usually would. The spirit is able to move about freely, the creativity weaves new threads. And even in this form this room is what a room often is: protection for all these fragile things to move around without boundaries, to sprout words who become sentences who become songs.
So I hope I´ll hear about this in the future.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Zia

Zia
oil on stretched canvas (linen)
100 x 80 cm
2012


I had the new (old) idea to portrait people in their vocation. First I deliberated who to paint, then I had a flash of genius. Hey, I know some really interesting people, why not paint them? So Zia ist one of my first. As always in my painting it´s not that clear what exactly she´s doing. That´s me and my way to picture things. Not able to fathom at the very first sight what it is. It needs some more sights. Zia is a genius with plants. She sells them, she designs gardens, she has a unique way in this area. It was inevitable to paint her as some kind of goddess *ggg* When I look at this picture I think: Gaia. But of course she has an evil side just like everyone. She loves murdering. No, not by herself. She leaves that to other talented persons in form of books and movies. She loves murder mysteries. So don´t read the book as an ... uh ... unkind word. That´s only in English that way ;-) It´s not a bad word at all but a poison. So I decided to chain the very important aspects: plants and murder. The link is a very harmless looking plant in her hand, all beautiful and so deadly. It´s linked to greek mythology, it´s linked to poison and the book title and it´s linked to plants. Aconitum napellus. I hope Zia appreciates this picture, she was so kind to give permission to paint her. She didn´t even know the outcome of this all, it was all in my evil hand. ;-)

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Happy birthday house :-)



This year, my house is getting 140 years old. I don´t know the exact month, of course. To much time passed by, but it´s something to know the year. A lot of records got lost at WW II, but here and there things were found. So I know it´s the house of the architect and that´s the reason it´s the largest house here (and the most beautiful I have to admit). After the whole village burned down in 1871, it was build anew only a year later. The speciality was the colourfulness of every house. It was public in this area. I found some pigments, but I didn´t know if it was original, but it´s similar to it´s new paint. It looks totally changed now. Of some kind I miss the shabby look, on the other side it was important to rescue the substance. It´s not getting better. And after some years it will look kind of normal, not that ... uh new. :-)