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Statement
I am a painter who works also in drawing and digital video. I engage with dynamics of contemporary identity that concern the perception of reality, the filters of associations, affects and memories, personal and impersonal. Continuously in motion, perceptions shape and shift the borders of identity between imagination and observation, the screens between forces outside and inside.
On the one hand, the growing instability of once reliable frameworks of ‘self’ and of the belief in mastery over nature encourages living a curious, temporal and communal self. It allows acknowledging its unknown facets of otherness and difference.
On the other hand, denying the new challenges and the attached anxieties will support defensive forms of identity. They find a safety net in ’the people’ against ‘the stranger’, a resistance to relating that opens up wide for corporate interests.
My works, apart from an initial focus on a subject or notion, are not fully planned. Spontaneity of brushwork takes the work along unknown routes, practicing ‘letting oneself paint’ and editing. Duration and time, becoming and dissolving have shaped the way I paint. By connecting to aspects of historical and modern painting and imagery, I can align my work to a living tradition.
Alchemical Renaissance illuminations, in particular, comment on how imagination shapes perception. Transitions, breakdowns and re-integrations of identity are situated in ambiguous landscapes and natural cycles. These hint at the fragility of identity, at unpredictable dynamics that interconnect transformations in the psychological realm with social and natural worlds.
My practice evolves around the question: how does the notion of an unfolding ‘self’, in time and today, relate to aspects of representation and materiality in painting?