I do not know which came first, image or word. When language is not enough to say a thing, I am drawn to the other medium.
„What we long for most in life is love. What frightens us most is death."
In the sieve of our thinking, this remainder always stays. Truth, then, must be found precisely there - in love and in death. Death is taken up by love. „Deus caritas est" - if we understand this, life becomes an endless wonder.
Encounters on the way to God
At my first exhibition in the Bischoff-Benno-Haus in Schmochtitz I came into contact with the then Bishop of Dresden, Joachim Reinelt. He had long had in mind a book of faith testimonies.
That is how the connection to Benno-Verlag came about. I proposed a concept of authentic testimonies from people who had been baptised as adults. With a tape recorder I travelled through the diocese and asked people about their experiences.
The first edition sold out quickly.
New edition
Some years later Patris Verlag offered to reissue the book. Almost fifteen years after the first volume appeared, the publisher approached me about a continuation.
The baptised were by then scattered across the country. One - now a Jesuit - was living in Rome. It was a moving task to meet these people again.
Companion to the first edition
As a further companion to the first publication, „Ankunft im wahren Leben" came into being. The baptismal testimonies are extended here by new encounters and reflective texts - voices of people whose path to God took shape again years later.
The volume sees itself as a continuation - less a looking back than a listening to how stories of faith go on working within a life.
36 paintings & texts
Alongside this I worked on the volume „Auf Engelsschwingen". The book presents thirty-six paintings - set against spiritual texts by well-known authors, which I selected myself to match each image.
The book was published in 2016 and shows how painting and literature can illuminate one another.
Image meets word
Each double-page spread pairs a pastel with a chosen text. From this arises a dialogue between colour and language, inviting the viewer to pause and read both together.
The compilation is deliberately meditative - a book to leaf through rather than to read through.
Poetry edition
In 2020 an edition of poems, „wagen was verloren scheint", appeared from Römerdruck-Buchdruck Verlag.
This volume is a collection of the poems that were shown alongside my paintings in previous exhibitions.
A poetic gathering
Alongside the published volumes a personal collection emerged - poems that arose directly out of the act of painting. They accompany many of my exhibitions and are shown there beside the paintings.
For me, word and image are two approaches to the same truth. This collection holds fast the moment in which the two come together.
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