Manifest -
The idea behind the ‘Colour storms’
These Expressionist oil paintings, created between 1987 and 1999 in Berlin and Frankfurt (Main), reflect a period of profound change. It is an era of transition – between a familiar analogue world and the dawn of a new era, characterised by digitalisation, globalisation and an ever-increasing pace of life.
Vivid colour contrasts, dynamic compositions and a deliberately minimalist, representational visual language condense landscapes, cities and living creatures into atmospheric snapshots. The motifs do not depict reality as it is, but as it feels: full of movement, tension and anticipation.
The focus is always on people – set against a backdrop of nature, technology and the metropolis. They experience change without being able to fully control it. Amidst a sense of new beginnings and uncertainty, visual worlds emerge in which hope and danger, dynamism and stillness, light and shadow coexist.
However, ‘Colour storrms’ is not a nostalgic look back at the past century. Rather, the images depict a transformation that continues to this day. This lends them a relevance that extends beyond the period in which they were created.
A powerful, impasto application of paint using a palette knife in several layers characterises the surfaces of the paintings, giving them a three-dimensional effect and lending the works an extraordinary depth and physicality.
The paint is not merely applied, but modelled – a nod to the expressive painting tradition of the early 20th century. This visible materiality itself becomes a vehicle for expressing movement, light and emotion – which give the paintings their unmistakable dynamism and vitality.