From vision to idea

Allegory untitled7 (Sedes Sapentiae), 2017,
chalk scetch --> oil on wood, 160*80 cm -->
Sedes Sapentiae, 2020, oil on canvas, 160*120 cm

How an image of the Virgin Mary is visible in the marble of Aachen Cathedral?

Metamorphosis, visible and yet mysterious transformation of things and beings, exists in geology, botany, zoology, music and mythology. In Ovid, for example, people transform into animals, lesser deities, plants, constellations, and so on. In the visual arts it is found explicitly, if one disregards concrete pictorial stories, in the surreal. From models - surfaces (frottages, photographs), dreams, visions, other works, etc. - details or figures are taken and brought into a new modified form. A new context of meaning can emerge.

For me, new and reinterpretation go together with the transformation. The model, e.g. a piece of the marble cladding in the Aachen Cathedral, has itself already moved far away from its origin in millions of years through manifold natural or cosmological metamorphosis. Through human hands - uncovering, cutting, polishing and changing its location - it has changed its shape further. Through St. Mary's Church as a sacred place, the object loses it‘s anonymity, it becomes aware of itself, and so it reveals itself as a vision. It becomes spiritual reality and thus points to its immaterial origin - the meaning, its creator.

Following such traces, the mystical-surreal images of the cycle Domseelen were painted from 2016 to 2018. They are a special source of ideas.