Artist Statement

I started to paint abstract when I was a child. To cover sheets and sheets of paper with color fields gave me so much joy, that I did not need any known object in it. Hours went by sitting in the corner on the floor painting. I was told that during those hours, I was a pleasant child.

Not much has changed. I am still painting abstract. The process of painting still gives me the most of excitement. To work with the flow with no concept, but let the dynamics of the process of painting take me to an unknown place, that’s what it is all about for me.

It is proven how strong music can influence people. Music can move us, touch us, and make us dance or make us cry. It opens up our receptors and stirs up our adrenalin. That is exactly what happens to me during a painting session. The whole band width of raw emotions is triggered when I find the right form for that particular color, the right width of a line, etc.

But before I find that perfect form there is a war zone on that canvas. To have the guts to dare…where else can you do that in life? There is pure lust involved when I apply the paints on the canvas. There is dripping, painting, printing, rubbing, pressing, and wiping off. The process is very physical and includes angry brushstrokes as well as gentle ones. Then comes the moment when the canvas takes over the process and makes me want to capture a certain feeling. That’s when the real work starts and I have to take back my own Ego and let things happen the way they want to happen. Usually I leave the place of excitement and reach a place of serenity.

So what is the message? There is no message. An abstract painting is an abstract painting. Period. I put my interpretation in it. So can everybody else. We all have different pasts and therefore each interpretation will be different. What serenity is for me may be boredom for someone else, or wisdom. Who knows? But the longer a painting triggers a dialog between it and the viewer, the better it has been done. That is my goal. When one of my paintings can make the viewer pause for a moment, wake him up and let him step out of his busy everyday life for a minute, then I know that I did a good job. We don’t have to understand why it made us pause, but the fact that it did is what counts.