Why I paint the way I paint...
In 1980, in a Berlin telephone booth, I discovered the enigmatic message,
scratched into a yellow metal frame:
"I am not what I am. I am what I am not."*
This ambiguous contradiction never left me alone. It opened the door to a
world of infinite possibilities: Not only what I currently am defines my
being, but also everything I am not yet—my longings, my hopes, my future.
In this tension between being and becoming, I recognized my very own
artistic calling.
Since that moment, this maxim has formed the foundation of my creative
thinking and action. My paintings, overpaintings, and layering reflect the
flow of time and the constant metamorphosis of myself. It began in 1980
with the first 25 carefully, transparently overpainted paintings; they tell
of becoming and passing, of the immanent and the transcendent. Thus, a
connection is created between my personal life path and the enigmatic
potential of the "not yet" that imbues every brushstroke with profound
impact. This insight has since formed the basis of my painting existence.
The 100 works presented here are the result of my personal creative credo
in its current state after 45 years. Layers that simultaneously conceal and
reveal, cracks in the painting that make visible the nothingness in my
being. Every brushstroke is an act of choice – a resistance against the
walls surrounding the self, a step toward the intangible other that I carry
within.
Thus, painting emerges as an existential echo: not as an image of a past
moment, but as a testimony to perpetual design – that ongoing struggle with
nothingness that compels me to continually redefine myself.
*Later, I discovered the origin of the statement attributed to François Fénelon –
"I am not what I am. I am what I am not." – is a paradoxical, deeply spiritual and
philosophical dictum that can be interpreted on multiple levels. Fénelon, a 17th-
century French theologian and mystic, was influenced by a deep Christian faith and
the idea of self-denial in the spirit of love for God.