Content map - current themes


Mind map

Mind map

I am currently continuing my two earlier drawing threads: 'landscapes' and 'playing cards'.

Inspired by my visit to in London in October 2010, where I saw the remarkable Vanitas – the transcience of earthly pleasures   and an artist residency in Bohemian Český Krumlov (CZ), where I participated in a Symposium on Egon Schiele´s 'Krumlov – the dead town' series, I started to put my 'landscapes' and 'playing cards' series into a slightly new context.

My visits to London and the Czech Republic reaffirmed my interest in 'ornamentation theory' – the preoccupation with a motif within a frame in endless repetition and the play with pattern and continuing structures. Biologically and philosophically 'this setting / construct' is extendable onto the cycles of (every day) life and time: its 'vanitas' and death...

Ever since I became (made myself) the 'proband' (test subject), verifying my thesis on ornamentation provided the impetus to record in detail my own life in diaries, photo archives etc. Naturally my artistic 'output' must incorporate biographical and private elements; furthermore, it is influenced by the environment: the land, its peoples, and my interaction with both.

The (baroque) notion of 'memento mori' has always captivated me and I am fascinated by fine art and literature of the ninetieth century, not just the art but also the social contexts giving rise to it: the development of (natural) sciences and humanities, industrialisation in Europe and its effects on women and men show the never-ending struggle between humans and nature...
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