statement

"To try out what can be done with painting: how

I can paint today, and above all what. Or to put

it differently, the continual attempt to picture to

myself what is going on."

(Gerhard Richter)

Some of my paintings - abstract or figurative - are based on photographs, some are painted

from photographs, some are painted without this "mediator".

Some of my photographs are black and white, some contain color, some contain text.

Like paint, canvas, ideas, emotions, experiences and expectations, photographs can be the

material for my paintings. Photographs can stand for themselves or can get transformed

into paintings. Not all photographs contain the specific quality which makes them potential

candidates for this transformation. Some gain their own status after their colors are changed

or text is added. The stillness of the photograph and its abstraction from reality is a precondition

for becoming part of a painting. There is no need to differentiate between abstraction and

picturing at that stage.

Taking photographs, manipulating them, and printing them, is not as much a tactile process

as painting a picture. There is always a mechanical element between the artist and the

photographic means, but if the end product is the picturing of something which was unclear

before, it has the same goal as a painting - to take the material and transform it, to create

visibility of something that was not visible before.

Except for some scarce background information there will be no attempt of interpretation or

explanation of my work on my side. Often I am looking at a finished work and wonder myself

where it comes from and what it means. Nevertheless a painting is only successful if it

generates some kind of reaction in the viewer. Whatever the intention of the artist - if

successful, the meaning of a painting or a photograph is as manifold as the viewers.