Archives for category: Digital art

Magic lamp

This is an image from my Memory Pictures Series: When I bought my macro lens, I started to photograph some rather tatty looking mementos I kept for donkey’s years in a box in the spare room. The idea was to finally part with the real objects. I guess this work has helped to move on a few skeletons, though the items are still in the box.

This particular one was an oil lamp, hand-crafted by a very very dear, but of course, long lost friend. I don’t have the urge to rub the lamp, I know the Genie has gone forever. In all the images one can see the settled dust.

CarefulThe book launch is exactly one week away now.

Last night I worked on even more new puppets. I really shouldn’t… there is still so much other stuff to do… I haven’t even build the puppet theatre yet! It’s only in my mind.  I wonder if I will start freaking out at one stage (that might not be a pretty sight for the people around me!). I haven’t asked for RSVP on the invitation, so I have no idea how many people will come. I have heard from a few people who won’t be able to make it, though.

Not a beautiful postcard

This was the first of my postcard series I did 5 years ago. The photograph of the wall of a partially demolished house triggered that project then. Postcards are pretty much a dying breed.

Thinking about it now, it is not too dissimilar to writing a blog. I sent one postcard every week and had to come up with an idea, print it and find some words to go with it. A bit of a slower pace though.

Looking back through my posts, it appears I have a rather limited and dull colour palette. Yes, I admit, I like earthy and subdued colours. But there are also times when I enjoy the bright and cheerful. It is not a contradiction.

More often than not I visit Germany in Winter. I usually arrive around Christmas and stay throughout January. This is the time when we in New Zealand have our long summer holidays. Everybody is on the move then.  However, it means that I am always in Europe, when it is cold and drab and miserable….

Last year I did a trip at Easter. I was there for the first balmy days of spring. The difference really hit me. These two tulip pics I took will always bring back the mood.

When I arrived back here, the wet and stormy autum had set in.

Modern Man

This is one of my favourites. For me, there is so much symbolism in it and of course I know the person depicted. Therefore I don’t think this work can ever have the same meaning for anybody else. I believe the viewer will find their own meaning in it, hence I don’t like to explain…

However, with this image I will describe how I technically put things together.

The original title of the work is: “Kaiser, König, Bettelmann” (engl. “Emperor, King, Pauper”). Broadly speaking, my intention is to show that any person can be (or should be allowed to be) any of these characters at times. Hopefully they will be well balanced. For a wider audience I would call it “Modern Man”. Now I really mean MAN, not mankind.

In all three parts of the triptych I used the same four photographs to create the background. Those four images are symbolic on their own

1) a close-up of stone wall and wooden door with flaky paint
2) a window looking from the inside out
3) a frayed lace curtain
4) an iron observation tower in the woods of on an Eastern German island.

The four images were combined to support the person’s poses (strong, balanced and weak).

It all developed from the balanced person’s photograph, which was a simple holiday snapshot and the other two people shots were taken to match what I had started.

energyI just realised, I am now blogging for one month. One can tell that I am still a newbie, as I am posting every day. I guess, when you are doing it for a while you will slow down. I have learned a thing or two in this first month, but I know I am still at the beginning of my learning curve.

Though, I am surprised how much I am enjoying this process. So far, I have never had the urge to show what I am producing to the world. There are gazillions of really good and gifted people out there… (A fact you become even more aware of, when you engage in the blogging community). The reason why I am really enjoying it, is that I am now sort of cataloguing my own work in my head. It is a retrospective of a non-exhibiting artist. What always seemed to me like a mixed bag, does actually have a common thread.

The puppets for whom I have set up the blog, appear to be the odd ones out. But only visually, only superficially.

The launch of my book is still three weeks away and I am going through all the expected emotions every day. I have finished the Devil’s Advocate puppet. The Procrastinator is still nowhere to be seen. But I have the feeling I moved forward tremendously.

One sentence I have read recently in the paper has lodged itself into my memory: “there is no art without an art market.” I stumbled when I read it, but continued on. Unfortunately I have forgotten the rest of the article and where and when I read it, so I can’t reference it. But this one sentence stuck. I disagree.

World on edge

Often, I take random pics while I am a passenger in a car, bus or train. I call this type photography  “drive by shooting.”

From those random pics, I started to create a series called  “World on edge“. But this project has slowed down as well since the puppets took over. Normally the first image in a series is totally random. But once I have created one I am happy with, I go out to take images to match the first one.

Life

My allegory for relationships

Between 2008 and 2009 I’ve  had a project going, where I’ve sent my sister a postcard once a week for a year. She lives on the other side of the world.  This postcard shown here was No 12.

For me railway tracks are a wonderful allegory for relationships: path crossing, joining, breaking off, running parallel or veering off.

communication

Circles seem to feature strongly in my work. This one is called mis under standing. It is my interpretation of a communication model. No matter how clearly you think you’ve send the message, it never will be received in  exactly the same way as you intended to.