1990 - 2000
On the perception of nature
After studying philosophy (1986-1988) and training in computer programming and 3D animation (1988-1989), my view of the world changed. The approach of "constructing reality" became more focused again.
Even in my school days, I was interested in technical drawing, which, according to Plato, is closer to the idea of things than the depiction of surfaces and the "appearance of light in the world", a theme of Descartes and later of the Impressionists.
In this constructive approach to explaining the world, however, I was interested in breaking down the objects of the world in my painting in order to better understand them as details of a general confusion in a world of surfaces.
At the time when today's virtual world was created, I divided reality into the appearance of surfaces, into graphic patterns and into the representation of a construction of three-dimensional bodies of the world.
This corresponds to the scientific and empirical way of looking at the world that has been used since Descarte, a method of deconstructing things.
Only by breaking the objects down into their individual parts can we accurately describe their components and the way they function.
My themes were still nature, but I was no longer interested in nature's intentions but rather in the way we humans perceive a world that is increasingly shaped by industry.
1983 - 1990
Intention of nature
In the 1980s, punk music and a certain directness defined the so-called "Zeitgeist". I was young and initially worked in the class of the impressionist Rudi Tröger at the Munich Art Academy. Later, through my work as an elected student representative at the Munich Art Academy, I came into contact with Professor Günther Fruhtrunk, with whose class I remained in close contact throughout my studies, even after Fruhtrunk's untimely death. After the traditional training in life drawing with Professor Heinz Butz, I became interested in the deconstruction of nature from 1983 onwards. Due to strong impressions from advertising posters and from a world that made extreme color contrasts a habit through cars, large typography, screens, etc., I increasingly worked in art with a formal language of contrasting color surfaces that could withstand this general "delusion". The basics of the image such as framing, the function of the image carrier in the image and the nail on which everything hangs, as well as signs and sign carriers became the subject of my painting.
Any picture that did not attempt to develop a new perspective on art was one too many for me at that time. My pictures should no longer look like nature; during those years I was searching for the idea of nature. My painting should make the formal principles of nature visible...