Excavations

So here we go. I have spent the last weeks thinking and thinking and workshopping about the stuff I make. Sounds laborious, I know. To be truthful at times it felt like pulling teeth and it looked like I will never get to the core of what this is about.

But I got there. After hours of listening to podcasts, marketing people, other artists and staring at coaches in online seminars I finally arrived at a place from where I can continue with clarity. Clarity in what I am making and why and clarity in how I want to communicate it to the people who might care.

(Another way of communicating is going to be this blog which starts at this very moment. I will try get my thoughts out every Sunday morning over a coffee ready for anyone who wants to read it.)

So, clarity: the output of my reflections are on my about page, in my "artist statement" as it is called. Also started to shift communication on Instagram, well, shifted from not communicating at all to actually writing something about the pictures I share.

I realised that when I was younger I used to write a lot. Until I stopped writing when I felt there were no words left that needed to be written. That's quite long ago now. And at some point after sitting in this vaccum for years I suddenly got the urge to start dabbling with paint. Without much intent - but I was putting paint down. Taking this seriously as a form of expression however was never an option.

My limiting belief: I cannot draw after all! Without that skill you cannot paint. That’s what I thought. I might still be thinking that, I don’t know really, because today it wouldn’t matter.  Whether you are good at drawing or not, you can definitely create! You can absolutely express yourself! You can just make stuff!

Because everyone can. I will never forget a Gerhard Richter quote I saw in an interview:

‚I never knew if I was good, I really didn’t. But I always knew I am allowed to do this.‘

Yes, this shows his incredible humbleness, but for all of us who are not Gerhard RIchter, that quote should serve as empowerment: I paint because I can!

The same artist is also the reason I started making paintings some years ago. The Tate Modern in London has a room with 4 huge Richter paintings, it’s probably my favorite spot in the world. Like music can pick up your mood in a certain moment, these paintings seem to mirror feelings that I carry with me all of the time. Somewhere in the background, a bit tucked away. To me these paintings express a feeling of being torn apart, an underlying inner conflict that never truly surfaces. There are layers and layers of random movement and action covered by layers and layers of random movement and action. Everything is hidden by everything else, everthing seems to be a fleeting remnant of whatever happened before. There is a melancholy to it, but then it’s also just the simple passage of time we’re confronted with. New layers will follow and paint over our layers and stories. I the message that maybe we don’t have to take ourselves so very important all of the time?

So, I started painting to see if I could find my way of getting out into this world what I felt in the moment I first sat in that room staring at Richters Cage paintings.

Getting those feelings out... I am still working towards that. Probably wouldn’t call it painting, but it’s some form of surface excavation inspired by a feeling of melancholy and the transient nature of human lives. Chances are if I feel it there’s others who will too, so maybe one day they would connect to it. Worth a shot!

And then there's the final question I was digging into over the last couple of weeks:

Why does my work look the way it looks?

I have always been drawn to urban life, everyday life and the simple stuff that’s all around us. Walls are such a great example of the chaotic and transient nature of cities. They are signs of creativity, pace, change and decay, human activities and stories. Society leaves seemingless random imprints on the walls everywhere around us.

Whether it’s the bright colourful houses, shops and churches you’ll get to see driving into a city like Los Angeles, the bleak and grey tones of post industrial areas around the world, wheathered posters glued to boarded up doors in Wilhemsburg. I have always liked looking at walls. They just tell so much about a place.

To conclude this one: I like the feeling the walls in urban surroundings create. That’s why I make what I make.

I am sure there will be another layer underneath what I just wrote and I will use this blog to keep peeling away the layers to understand more and more. But for now, I am quite happy with my findings after weeks of going deep into why I do what I do.

Just wanted to add if anyone has been reading this to the end, thank you so much! If you have any thoughts on any of my posts the comment section is open for your input. Would be nice to hear from you.

Talk to you next Sunday!

S