Reminiscences - The Painting Project from the Olympic Village in Munich

Naranja

Reminiscences is a series of paintings from a photo documentation (see slideshow here) about the Olympic Student Village in Munich. In 1966 Munich was awarded the Olympic Games for 1972. The Oberwiesenfeld, an undevelopped district of the city, became the Olympia Park and developed later into a famous touristic attraction because of its futuristic roofs. Part of the Olympia Park was a conglomeration of tiny, 2-story bungalows which first served as appartments for the athletes and after the games became part of the student housing of the Ludwig-Maximilian University and connected institutes, mostly for foreign students.
In 2002 part of those bungalows were renovated for the EM (European Athletics Championship) and again became part of the housing of the athletes during the contest.

A famous characteristic feature of the the Student Village were the murals and paintings on the bungalows, expressing the European spirit of the times with graffiti and bright colours, motifs from comics and other subjects, a very colourful collection of images. The bungalows were in a desolate condition after 35 years. The city decided to tear them down and rebuild them with new units rather than renovating them. This happened 2007- 2008.

The new bungalows are a bit smaller even but provide more appartments for the new students who have now inhabited the village again. The sad thing yet is, that all the murals and other paintings were lost, as well as the charming green jungle, that grew up in the past 35 years including some smashing wonderful cherry trees, which were a feast for the eye each spring. The new village is supposed to carry new colours again. There was a competition organized by the city where "artists" could present their ideas for new murals. But this was really not the same. The spontaneity was gone, the charm of not being so very perfect was gone, the people and community would never be the same again. It is like dancing for the tourists only in the meanwhile...Sad indeed.

Therefore I decided to put up a little "memorial" by creating a detailed photo documentation (see slideshow here) and turning part of these photos into a series of paintings which depict the colours and forms, the peeling paint and rotting walls of the original bungalows...

In order to make these paintings available for everyone I decided to get the originals made as fine art prints on real 420 g/m cotton canvas, finished with a matte varnish. You can finde these in my Etsy Shop.

Naranja was inspired by the colour and intriguing pattern of peeling paint from a wall of one of those old student bungalows. The resulting work became both - an abstract and photorealistic painting...

"Naranja"

18" x 26"

acrylic on cotton

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Acrylic Painting from the Pigeons Series - Contemplation on a Feather

This was a completely new project I started about one of my favourite themes - my balcony pigeons.
I did not intend to paint merely pigeon portraits as one would assume but I wanted to concentrate on some unusual views, close-ups which normally escape the human eye if you don’t have the chance to watch pigeons for 24 hours a day and so close as I can do. I also wanted to paint in a manner that comes close to photographic realism but also wanted to keep the painted objects minimalistic i.e. the canvas will have large, seemingly empty areas, contemplative so to speak.

Therefore the first title was Contemplation on a Feather. I want to show the progress from WIP to the  finished painting...

Btw – these were the feet of Pete, the patriarch of our pigeon family. He was an impressive pigeon man with incredibly broad shoulders and beautiful feet with completely white nails. He went over the rainbow in February 2011 and you can read his story here and here. I miss him still after so many years - he will always have a place in my heart.
Here are a few photos of him so that you can see what I am talking about...

 Finally the first painting of the pigeon series was finished and here it is...

"Contemplation on a Feather"

18" x 26"

acrylic on cotton canvas

And here are some details of the finished painting....

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Quilt Art on Silk - Cygnes

Cygnes means "swans", a bird which I love very much for its grace, its elegant attitude, its appearance and as a symbol for elegance and beauty.
Swans are the largest of the waterfowl and generally considered the most beautiful of all birds of the water. Swans are generally seasonal and monogamous  breeders and maintain pair bonds over a number of years or even till the end of their lives.
Swans are said to be birds full of mystic power and often become the symbols of eternal love. On the other hand they are hunted for food and even out of hate because they are said to steal too many fish. So sometimes they become the victim of an overjealous sadistic fisherman which I find extremely disgusting.

This art quilt has been created for pure joy about these birds. I could watch them for hours and sometimes I am very happy to hear them flying by at very early hours in the middle of my town. The art quilt is entirely hand quilted and hand painted.

"Cygnes"

76" x 54"

silk, hand quilted

This wall hanging has been part of a project called “Piecing a Quilt of Life,” an international project dedicated to empowering senior women by recognizing their creative abilities by Fiber Artist Dottie Moore in Rock Hill, South Carolina. It was part of an exhibition in the Rock Hill Museum for nearly 8 months and was featured on TV in the HGTV channel.

The last image shows the reverse side of this work.

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Wood Carving - The Tibetan Dragon Bed

When I started my artist carreer so many years ago I was very uncertain of myself as probably most people  feel when they start with something new in life. What seems to be so important at the beginning to consider becomes totally meaningless during the progress - the definition of what one IS - a real artist or only an artisan and craftsperson. Yes - this discussion is actually held again and again.

All those discussions I have participated in with real people and which cost so much wasted energy about the ifs and whens and overalls were, what I just said, wasted energy. The classification of certain works and people into something like a caste system (as in India) is so very much off the real sense that lies behind everything you do – learning. So why not talk about all the steps it took to make me what I am. There is nothing to hide. And perhaps it may help someone else who has difficulties to see the achievements in her/his own life.
People who sniff at a style, a medium or simply at a person who does not follow the trends, simply miss something very important: authenticity and soul. And this is all I want to say about this now. Today I am what I am - a professional artist, an artisan and a craftsperson and I am totally proud of it.

How I got into wood carving had some practical aspect simply - I needed a sturdy desk but did not have the money to buy a new one, especially not one custom made. So I started with construction plans and went ahead (a different story to tell). The next project was soon to arrive - a new bed. The old one was more than ready to go - but what to do now?

So I let the juices of my inspiration flow and went to design something completely new and different from everything I had done so far. What about a Tibetan/Nepalese dragon bed? I have always been fascinated by Tibetan and Nepalese Tankhas (mostly religious silk scroll paintings mounted on brocade) with vivid images of gods, demons and the whole pantheon of the Buddhist world.

The form of the head piece should be simple, the motif 2 dragons – which are a lucky symbol in all Asian countries. I love dragons. And so I decided to carve 2 facing dragons on this head piece of the bed together with some ornaments and some magic signs for long life, safety and peace etc.:

I decided to use the same wood that I used for the desk. It was heavy but very solid and sturdy and exactly the right material to carry the carvings I had in my mind. Also I wanted to design the headpiece in an open work as you can see in the photos. This was only possible with a laminated wood (not plywood but at least 11 layers of wood glued upon one another). The open pattern was sawed with a scroll saw.

In order to give the headpiece more depth I constructed a kind of box shape - which you can see in the image below - this did not add much weight but stability to the open work.

 

All other parts were supposed to be very low so that the whole was only a kind of frame for the tatamis and the futon (as you can see in the photos below).
Additionally I wanted the complete construction to be de-mountable again for very practical reasons. The tatamis were supposed to lie on a simple wooden panel exactly fitting the size of the 2 tatamis. The 3 side pieces were connected by simple brass hinges.

The working process was simple: first the drawing was transferred to the wood, then the bas-relief carved with an electric chisel. Finally the wood was sanded, varnished, treated with a finish on the basis of beeswax and polished with pure beeswax in order to achieve a velvety shimmer and a very smooth surface.
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In order to connect head piece, the side pieces and the foot piece I mounted brass hinges. This way the whole bed could be taken apart in a couple of seconds.

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In the image above you can see the detailed relief carvings, the stylized flower elements that are repeated in the sidepieces.

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Silk Carving from the Hawaiian Symbols Series - Lost Treasures

Lost Treasures belongs to the series of Hawaiian symbols. With their wealth of endemic plants the Hawaiian Islands belong to the most precious natural places of this world.

At the same time Lost Treasures is also an "environmental" piece and dedicated to the rainforests, the green lungs of our world. It is a reminder of what we are currently doing to our own life because what is lost for profit and "civilization" is part of ourselves. When we continue to kill our trees and the living beings in our world we will finally kill ourselves. Hundreds of specimen are extinguished daily and never return not to speak of the inumerable acres of natural forests which are lost daily.
In order to increase the impact of this art work I burnt holes into the fabric and added some cork pieces to "imitate" the ashes that remain from burnt forests...

Lost Treasures incorporates a technique called "silk carving©", which is a development by me and was born out of the trapunto techniques but uses multiple layers. The intent of this technique was to create a symbiosis between carving and fiber art. The surface of the fiber was transformed completely into a relief. The upper layer of this piece was made from one single piece of silk - nothing was sewn on top to add depth.

"Lost Treasures"

66" x 17"

silk carving, stitched

Here are some more details from this piece:

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Silk Scrolls - The Palace

Here comes another silk scroll from the Asian series Ornaments. Now this was a real fun piece because of the unusual perspective and my favourite colours.
Theme again is from India, a continent full of extremely interesting cultures, a fantastic architecture and breathtaking crafts such as stone and wood carvings and textile arts. Especially the magnificent architecture of the past centuries was my inspiration for this silk scroll.

Especially the filigree stone carvings amaze me. Marble carved into ornaments where you ask yourself how on earth did the craftspeople succeed in defying gravity and the brittleness of stone where any tiny mistake cannot be undone but rather results in total desaster?

Even if many of the common people still suffer from hunger today just like hundreds of years ago, even if the growing suburbs are drowning in overpopulation with the consequence of increasing slums and extreme poverty there are still those rich people, surrounding themselves with an incredible splendor and luxury you hardly find anywhere else. One may not forget though that without these people all those miracles of architecture and handcraft would have been buried in oblivion. Wealth made it possible to employ hundreds of craftsmen, architects and artisans who constructed and built all these miraculous places and sites. Thus a culture came into being that can hardly be compared with anything else in this world.
If only the wealth would be distributed in a more just way instead of being kept in the hands of a few. But as long as these old feudal systems continue to exist there will be no substantial change.

"The Palace"

75" x 23"

silk scroll

A very sophisticated technique was used to keep the buildings cool inside in a very hot climate: walls, pillars, domes, ledges and mantelpieces were built in a special order so that the air could circulate through the open-work. This way the air was cooled down – a natural air-conditioning without any environmental pollution and without all the energy impact that seems to be necessary today.

Wouldn’t this be a thought provoking idea for modern architecture in the face of diminishing resources? The skyscrapers and modern glassy palaces which are built today and which feed on an incredible amount of energy are the true dinosaurs of history. Instead of continuing this recipe of huge egos and pride we should go back to the traditional constructions and check the applicability for our century. The one or other technique may well be used and applied to modern constructions. This would be one of the possibilities to declare war on waste. Many do this already but still not enough.

The construction of this scroll is the same as described in the last one: a middle piece, a head piece and a foot piece.

First a detailed drawing was created, then the middle piece painted with silk dyes.The detail work was the most important part for this silk scroll because it should be reminiscent of the filigree work of the traditional Indian stone masonry and ornamentation..

Also on this scroll head piece and foot piece were painted not batiqued. The similarity to the textile arts of southeast Asia is intended though - the ornaments were created with stencils, then transformed to the silk with a very soft pencil and finally painted with great care.

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Reminiscences - The Painting Project from the Olympic Village in Munich

Azul

"Reminiscences" is a series of paintings from a photo documentation about the Olympic Student Village in Munich. In 1966 Munich was awarded the Olympic Games for 1972. The Oberwiesenfeld, an undevelopped district of the city, became the Olympia Park and developed later into a famous touristic attraction because of its futuristic roofs. Part of the Olympia Park was a conglomeration of tiny, 2-story bungalows which first served as appartments for the athletes and after the games became part of the student housing of the Ludwig-Maximilian University and connected institutes, mostly for foreign students.
In 2002 part of those bungalows were renovated for the EM (European Athletics Championship) and again became part of the housing of the athletes during the contest.

A famous characteristic feature of the the Student Village were the murals and paintings on the bungalows, expressing the European spirit of the times with graffiti and bright colours, motifs from comics and other subjects, a very colourful collection of images. The bungalows were in a desolate condition after 35 years. The city decided to tear them down and rebuild them with new units rather than renovating them. This happened 2007- 2008.

The new bungalows are a bit smaller even but provide more appartments for the new students who have now inhabited the village again. The sad thing yet is, that all the murals and other paintings were lost, as well as the charming green jungle, that grew up in the past 35 years including some smashing wonderful cherry trees, which were a feast for the eye each spring. The new village is supposed to carry new colours again. There was a competition organized by the city where "artists" could present their ideas for new murals. But this was really not the same. The spontaneity was gone, the charm of not being so very perfect was gone, the people and community would never be the same again. It is like dancing for the tourists only in the meanwhile...Sad indeed.

Therefore I decided to put up a little "memorial" by creating a detailed photo documentation and turning part of these photos into a series of paintings which depict the colours and forms, the peeling paint and rotting walls of the original bungalows...

In order to make these paintings available for everyone I decided to get the originals made as fine art prints on real 420 g/m cotton canvas, finished with a matte varnish. You can finde these in my Etsy Shop.

 “Amarillo”

  18″ x 26″

acrylic on cotton

I was completely intrigued by the blue colour of this wall and the shadow, the old bicycle left there...
Here are some more details of the painting:

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