Memories Collage

Childhood memories, life on the sea, restoration of old graphics and inspiration through music, over and over again, have shaped my paintings. Surface structures create three-dimensionality on my art works. The various materials used, unfold their own effects. Nature, the ocean, my childhood, dreaming and enjoying silence give me inspirations. I love mysticism, light and shadow and endless vastness. They are pictures of silence. I was born in 1941 in Neumunster, Germany. My main interests are "Sand Images". The initial inspiration for working with sand had its origins in my travels, in which I discovered that under the influence of natural forces and the climate, sand manifests an immeasurable variety, both in the appearance of its colours as well as its consistency. The first step was collecting the sand; yellow sand from Morocco, almost orange caloured sand from Dubai and red sand from Namibia. A second discovery was the changeability of the colour shades of the sand in changing light, which is far more drastic than I was familiar with from the colour pigments alone; a blue sky gives the sand glorious shine and warmth in contrast, a grey sky makes the colours appear cold. Finally, fire gives the sand a certain glow. Slowly and steadily, a plan took shape for me, to use sand as a pigment in my pictures. Then followed the experiments with the newly discovered medium. I took nature as my mentor I knew what wind, water and sun can do with the sand and started, so to speak, on a smalier scale than the original model, to develop new possibilities for my painting technique. The consistericy of the sand is another variable: it can be fine like powder, and adapt itself, but also ground to a stony, sharp texture so that touching it awakens our defences. Next to smoothly painted surfaces, sand always appears to be more or less plastic; to increase this contrast, I use other, coarser materials, like rough stones and mussels or even sticks and ribbons. Finally, the sand is processed further while it is still setting. I scratche line patterns and scoops out depressions that bring footprints to mind. Since the scope of this publication limits us in the level of detail, let us address the essentials, because this painstaking work serves a purpose, a basic desire of me that flows like a red thread through all my work, i.