Dealing with the Past

... and with the future. Always.

Nevertheless, I am foremost a now-oriented person. I like to live in and for the presence, even if it is not a good one. I want to go through it with open eyes.

That's probably the reason why I don't take a lot of photos of my family and on my travels because I feel that dealing with a camera in certain precious moments would alter and narrow the experience of those very moments for me. At the same time, I wished I had more photos of certain moments because, even though photos can never reflect all aspects of the captured moments, they help remembering them.

I have a few thoughts in this context regarding my collage work. A wonderful painter just recently said to me that she felt inspired by my art to work more in collage herself (thank you, I love to hear that!), and that collages are like little time capsules in a way. That's very obviously true, yes. But for some reason I never thought about collages in this way. The aspect of preserving the past is not important to me, not even elements of it. Everything flows, everything changes, even the things that don't seem to be changing do change because those things are handed over from generations to generations and each generation has its own take on it and its own additional baggage.

I see my collages as being present, as they reflect my current thoughts and emotions through the clippings of people and objects that I put together. Those people and objects may be cut out from very old sources; however, via the cutting process they are released from their old presence and placed into a new presence that I am creating on my canvas. We all have a past but that doesn't make us history. I look at my "cut-outs" in the same way, and I placed the word "cut-outs" in quotation marks because I consider them actual people and objects. I know, that sounds odd. But when you look at a photograph of a person, you see a person, and if you see a table in a photo, you see a table and know it's a table and understand what a table is. They deliver a concept of the world that we live in now, and the past is as well a part of the presence as the future is.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to talk a few minutes about my work to a group of art students at our local university. It wasn't planned at all; I came to the school to briefly meet an art professor (who also is curator of a nearby gallery) to drop off prints of my works. She was just about to start her class when I arrived, and she asked me to show and comment on some of my pieces. That's what I did, and I am thankful for this opportunity. Later I thought that it may be a good idea to give a more detailed art talk some time.

Because collage is something that has so much depth and potential but is not considered "real art" by many. I often hear the question, if I also would do "my own art." Well. Collage has been known for a long time but I find, that it doesn't receive the same respect and appreciation as painting, drawing, or sculpting. With paintings, drawings, and sculptures the technical skills are much more obvious, while collage artists seem to take advantage of the works of "better," meaning: more skilled, artists. I can live with this misconception, even though it bothers me sometimes. Because visual art is never only just visual. Visual art reaches (or doesn't reach) the viewer in other sensual ways too, directly or indirectly. A piece of art, no matter what medium or genre, is worth nothing to the viewer if it doesn't trigger any sensual perception in her or him. Though I feel, that people don't allow themselves to be open towards the invisible as much as they could.

Anyways, this is a very visual time that we are living in. It's all about seeing and looks. What's not visible is not there. -- I made this piece earlier this year thinking about the hateful right wing politics and movements here and in my native country, Germany. It's about the past which is driving us down while having blinders on. I placed the scene in an empty mansion coming from upstairs to the downstairs to reflect the different levels of conscience.

"Dealing With the Past"
Mixed media: acrylics, book clippings, ink, on canvas panel, 12" x 12"