Painting is the point of contact between inner reality and external projection. It is like a skin that wants to mediate between the inner and outer world. Physically, a painting consists of almost nothing: a thin layer of paint on a flat support. Despite the insignificant weight of a painting and the lack of three-dimensional extension, this painted layer opens up an endless variety of imaginary rooms and deep spaces of color. However these ­dimensions can only be entered by thoughts and emotions. With its archaic and simple means, painting can be anything - from an abstract thought construction to an emotional document or an illusionistic representation. The essence of a painting can be anything but tangible reality.
In the late 1950s hard-edge painting attempted to conquer reality with a strategy using impersonal execution and industrial paint. Large scale formate became integral to their work to manifest a stronger presence in the material world. However the problems became clear: In the end, the intention behind the work was bigger than any canvas and the impersonal paint application spoke of nothing else but the individual hiding behind it. Ultimately hard-edge paintings are predominantly pictures about wanting and not just factual objects. Painting is not a reality in the physical sense; it is rather projection.
It´s this conceptional rebound which fascinates me. To create something which is present in the physical world but only to provide a kind of wormhole, as a path into the planes of ideas, feelings and thoughts. Thus, a painting only needs to be constructed stable enough to hold some layers of paint and to withstand a viewer's gaze. Anything else is unnecessary, possibly hindering.
Most of my paintings are large in size, but light weight. Large, because relating to the scale of the body is important to me and light in weight due to their spare construction. Some of them are painted with gestural brushstrokes, others are rather minimalist and monochrome. Occasionally the surface stays completely unpainted and the shape of the canvas becomes the expressive element. Curated configuration of my paintings can be crucial to their perception. At times I just lay them on the floor, hang them resolutely on ceiling, in the middle of the room or even in between the trees in a forest.
The contextual arrangements and the distinctive shapes lend to the work a strong physical presence and a curious or potent ambiguity. There is an deliberate affinity to film props or Cargo Cult objects. I am intrigued to uncouple reality from conception and the possibility of letting the one go to cherish the other - just borne by one's own projection.
As a child, my older brother copied the picture Monk by the Sea by Caspar David Friedrich. In his version, however, he simply omitted the monk. What remained was a vast emptiness, an incomplete and amorphic world of color. All illusion and all voyeurism were gone. Looking at it suddenly it felt like the painting was actually looking at me or even pulling me in. At the spot of the vanished monk, I set foot into it like an actor steps into a scenery - but with no-one watching.
I want to reanimate this kind of perception in my own artwork. Recently my paintings have become increasingly more abstract and fragmented. With the aid of these intrinsic fragments, I try to find my way around through an inner territory. The pictures or sculptural painting I build are like temporary furnishing to host a projection into a concealed interior, which I am about to recapture.