"In Presence" Painting

Modern man suffers from his existence. In order to bring his living environment under control, he constantly optimises himself with the greatest possible effort. He shapes his surroundings, tries to make sense of his undertakings, but permanently overtaxes himself under the given possibilities of his creative powers. Technical progress increasingly offers him an abundance of possibilities to shape and determine his individual life path, but denies him the guarantee of ultimate satisfaction resulting from his continuous restlessness. In order to break out of this vicious circle, he has created an illusory world that partially puts him off. For reality is the ugly betrayal of our desires and dreams. Having to endure this circumstance is the real tragedy of man.

While Friedrich Nietzsche describes art as the actual metaphysical activity of man [1], thus only in aesthetics does life appear justified, the course of the progress of knowledge culminates today in the question: What is the use of aesthetics, harmony and beauty in a world of discord of every conceivable kind? Our discomfort with our culture is confronted with our limited perception, which is moreover shrouded in the supposed creation of meaning. The world of wishful thinking that we have painted in colourful and screaming fashion, more like Disneyland than Plato's world of ideas, does not redeem us from contingency, the simple non-necessity of everything that exists.

Yet the market for all kinds of survival strategies is flourishing: there is no shortage of ideologies, parties, schools of thought, advertising slogans, ministerial decisions. Society is drowning in a flood of images, soundscapes, consumer goods. Sedatives and stimulants offer just as much guidance as insurance policies and laws to protect the citizen. Doesn't it seem that we can choose at will what we want, desire and hope for in order to be able to deal with all the adversities of life, to make everything even faster, more beautiful, more comfortable, in other words: to become sustainably happy?

But unfortunately, this colourful survival package of illusions does not work as we imagine. Our discomfort is expressed in the fact that we believe our relative perception to be the absolute truth. Our interpretations and explanations of what is real are reality in our eyes: that is the illusion we fall prey to, that is our real problem. This is where my art comes in.