Scarlet Lake Painting

Awareness The color field painting offers a space to practice perception and to experience the presence of active silence and mindfulness. In my work I consider perception to be THE basis for approaching an expanded “understanding” of the world. A new understanding, guided by an unprejudiced view. Perception In painting, in doing, in the attentive observation of the picture during the development of the color field, there is always a pole of calm, a movement of attention towards stillness. And an invitation for meditation. Play & Creativity As a child, still fully involved in the beauty of simple life on a Slovenian farm, without electric light, but candlelight, no running water, but clear, fresh water from the well and no central heating, but the cozy warmth of a tiled stove (at least in winter) – so under simple living conditions, but in the game, in nature there were breaks with the family when the time came and I was just 6 years old. The desire for some relief, for a little luxury in being there, prompted my mother to go to Germany. The call of the later stepfather, who had 5 children in Germany alone, was too tempting. I lost sight of the two bigger siblings there, my brother came to relatives like me. The little sister was allowed to go on the trip with her while I was housed at the age of 6 with my aunt and uncle in the neighboring town. After a year I was allowed to follow in Southern Germany, but the social apartment hardly offered any space for the existing family of eight, so the decision to move me to the Catholic children’s home made sense from this perspective. Creation For the second time my way into the unknown was – this also turned out to be a stroke of luck since the schooling and the compulsion to learn the German language – apart from me, nobody spoke Slovenian in this home – as a kind of “learning acceleration” acted and I was then empowered to speak German but at the same time deprived of Slovenian. Now that I am writing these lines over 50 years have passed and the desire for an interpretation of how and why my art looks like and why this form of creation … the seed for expression in the present could have been planted in these times of change … For me, the greatest miracle is that beauty can grow out of pain. Colorfield Painting (Farbfeldmalerei) means: working on and with color to discover the unexpected part of the inner soul and the bigger soul of us all.