Time has been on my mind lately, approaching the Summer Solstice. From winter to summer, from the longest night to the longest day, from the darkness to the light. Then a turn towards darkness again, in the rhythm of change, and of life, in the cycles of rebirth.
My career in art began in my mid-thirties, when I realised I was not satisfied with just looking at art, that the creation was my path. What a path it was. It has been full of change, searching, thorns and beauty, fulfilment and longing, and of hope. Between the light and the darkness.
Creation, the creative process, is what leads me out of the confines of time. So the paintings I create are also a doorway into timelessness.
I don’t like to to talk about what the paintings communicate, firstly because the paintings themselves say everything that is necessary. Moreover, we live in a world of manipulation, where through carefully planned propaganda, something can be given a value and a meaning that it doesn’t have at all. We’ve become so accustomed to constant imposition that we do not even notice it anymore. That’s why I do not want to direct the experience of the paintings with my own view, I just want to say what might not be apparent to someone at first glance.
There is a reason for this introduction about time and manipulation. Besides creation, I know of another gateway to timelessness. A profound experience and connection with Nature. To me forests, rivers and meadows are infinite cathedrals where I am one with creation, the Source, where I just am. As much as I love Nature, Nature loves me back. There, I am fully accepted and loved. This year it’s given me the special gift of roses and other flowers that bloom in my garden, which have never been so intoxicating and lush. Each morning the apple trees greet me joyfully and embrace me in endless shades of green. The abundance that nature offers me makes me grateful and opens my heart. There is no room for manipulation, all the trappings of modern times simply fall away. This is the place of sincerity, of connection, of unity, of unconditional love. That is really how it should be, shouldn’t it?
Each painting I create is a perfect response to the experience of life and the world at the moment of creation. When in the short days of winter I miss the warmth, the light of the sun and the light of Source flows through me during the creative process. When in the superficiality of everyday life, I miss the depth of the dark waters and starry nights, I paint this for myself. Since the pandemic, I often paint motifs, all that exist below the Sun. Not only in the search of light, but also of the freedom and selfhood that the Sun symbolises for me. And of course the happy, playful, light, magical meadows which bring me joy, this might be what I need most in my constant struggle for survival.
Being an empath I experience our beautiful planet as a part of myself, my reactions are often the consequences of what we as humanity do to Mother Nature and to eachother. These feelings are often so heavy that I want to run away because it’s just too much, it’s too painful and I need a break. But it is something too important to turn my head away from. So I have been intensely processing the pain and especially the sadness for the last month, not only my own, but also the collective one.
I have been working almost exclusively on process painting for the last two months. It’s time to move on, out of the grip of all sorts of limitations, defence mechanisms that I have created in response to life experiences. I had to go deep. One of the most powerful paintings I made during this period is titled Ancestors. Once it was finished, I felt the weight leaving my body, the tensions of millennia of pain, of hard living, of violent deaths, of humiliations, of harshness being released.
What burdens me most is the humiliation and violence, the abuse of women and children. As an empath, I also take a lot of it out on myself. This is what still hurts me the most. So the picture of When is enough enough? The most intense process I have entered into and which is still ongoing.
The paintings painted during these processes were healing me and opening up new dimensions, new depths. “My Angels”, “Joy” and the most recent one, “Depth”, which somehow completes the whole cycle of paintings. I am still a bit surprised by its extraordinary colourfulness, which tells me, relax already, you don’t have to work and be stressed all the time, not every painting has to be a masterpiece, stop being so serious. Trust, accept, open up.
Looking back, just a few months, I feel like a completely different person. I realised that I still have a lot to discover, that I will still learn and find many things along the way. At the same time, this is also a gift to those, who are drawn to my paintings. You don’t need to know exactly why, when you look at them, it may be perfectly clear what it is, or it may just be the indescribable feeling that the painting gives you. Some of my recent paintings have already been listed to my web page and some are jet to come in next few days. Please let me know how you like it.
There are endless levels to the paintings, just as there are endless levels to the universe that has poured itself down through my brush.
That is what I am here for. To bring the beauty, harmony and fluidity of the infinite love of the Source into this dimension through the creative process.
