Landscapes
"While nature indifferently absorbs our lives, strivings and deaths, existence goes on” (Francesco Baldo, from ‘Each like a coal drawn from the fire’: Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line)
We may experience many many deaths and losses in the course of our lifes, and to me it sometimes seems frightening and saddening, this everlasting fading and uncertainty. No matter how great or beautiful or significant something is, it is not safe from perishing or an eventual parting. For myself I learned that no matter how big and hurtful the loss is, it is not the end of happiness in general, and it doesn’t make what has happened less. I rather like thinking that every end is the start of something new, something that otherwise would not have been.
Here I do like the metaphorical hour-flowers in Michael Ende’s Book “Momo”: each hour is a flower given as a gift to each person, and it is of the greatest beauty. But at the end of each hour the flower withers and its unique beauty will never be seen again. In the story Momo, the heroine, is filled with enormous joy as she sees for the first time consciously an hour-flower, as much enormous grief overcomes her as she watches it fade. However, the moment the last petal falls, a new hour-flower begins to blossom. And this new one seems to be even more beautiful than the previous. The secret is that each flower, no matter its shape and colour, is the most beautiful for the duration of its existence. It is up to us if we recognize this beauty or not.
With my landscapes I am attempting to follow Momo’s example, trying to understand the beauty of each experience I have. In order to be open for the uniqueness of the moment, I practice to be present here and now, and stay with the theme to absorb its specific tune. For expressing it, I am using the language of nature and landscape painting, as it is a language that I have learned over many adventures of roaming freely in the wild countryside. Cloud formations, extended mountain ranges, steep ravines – it all provides me with an inexhaustible variety of expressions.
Of course nature is not only a resource, not only a language I use for “my own” ideas. While I am trying to depict nature itself in its infinite moods and qualities, nature helps me to access and talk about what is inside myself.
In any case it is important to listen to myself, to the painting, to nature, and something in between all this. Momo’s story reminds me of which path I myself want to follow in my paintings. I already like what I have come up with so far and want to welcome everyone to enter and journey with me through my landscapes.
