Knights of Armageddon Painting

Sven ‘DEBO’ Bode For more details contact: curator@saatchiart.com I am originally from Berlin, Germany. We say it as it is. ‘My Art is my Soul - Pure and real.' The process is intense and exhausting. My painting’s evolve while creating them until satisfactory to me and ready to present. The BEGINNING: At seventeen, DEBO set out to discover the world. He first moved to Berlin where he began his university studies in engineering. His true passion, however, pushed him to also attend lectures for visual arts at Berlin’s Academy of Arts. A frequent visitor to the city’s astounding art museums, he studied the great masters. At the National Gallery, he had the opportunity to attend lectures by the world-renowned Modernist, Joseph Beuys. Although young DEBO had found artistic inspiration through Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Jackson Pollock and Marc Chagall’s works of art, it was Joseph Beuys who gave him the confidence to pursue his own style and to display his pieces in galleries. DEBO spend years experimenting and exploring his own style. During this period he traveled around the world, visiting countries and cities all over Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific. These experiences influenced his artistic phases. The Enlightening: “It was a Saturday,” DEBO told me. “I was coming down the steps from my office building, ready to cross the street,” he remembers. There, ahead, walking toward him, he spotted His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama with his bodyguards. “The Dalai Lama was on a political visit to Berlin and may have wanted to discover the real people of the city,” he said. This chance encounter was about to have a profound impact on the artist. “I will say ‘Hello’,” he thought and tried. After the bodyguards made sure that he was of no threat to HH, the Dalai Lama, charismatic as always, ended up sitting down with DEBO by the steps of his office building. They chatted about life, spiritual moments and art. “He advised to create beauty from the heart and what is part of my inner self, to give enjoyable moments to the people,” the artist remembers. After their chat, DEBO was ready “to make the commitment to present to the world his message.” His new artistic persona was a fusion of the corporate and the creative. See, it was not only through art that he would “create.” Whether it is through fashion photography, industrial engineering, magazine publishing or painting. The Ethno: DEBO fulfills his passion.