Why do you paint?
The painting is the outside of my inner self. I make the decide to paint. You as the viewer, the consumer have the choice to say “yes” or “no.”

How personal is your art?
My first works were dark, I used a lot of black. I think I worked my way out of a deep hole after my career as a graphic designer.

Your works often feature everyday objects and inconspicuous places. What fascinates you about them?
I encounter most of my motifs while traveling. In Bodega Bay, California, for example, I wanted to see the filming locations of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.” The place that fascinated me instead was the overgrown tennis court of the motel where we stayed. I’m captivated by places we don’t usually take time for, places that stand apart and aren’t the focus of our attention. Things that are there out of habit, unnoticed, forgotten, like switches on walls. I love the everyday items.
And then I have to make it big.

What feeling do you want to evoke?
What is your perception, as a person who stops and is interested in my work? Feelings do not need explanation, judgment, or commentary.

How would you describe your style of painting?
I love gardening, working with the earth and plants, the craftsmanship, the physical exertion. It’s a creative process that involves a lot of waiting and a respectful distance.

How should I imagine this?
I detach myself from my surroundings to be with myself. Concentrated and focused.
It’s exciting. I celebrate my work… Sometimes I think: Why didn’t I switch sides sooner… From applied to fine art… I’m grateful—graphics is my foundation, and my painting is based on it: choice of motif and color, composition, and format…

Is it quiet and peaceful in your studio then?
I often dance in front of my paintings.
It depends on the stage the work is in: meditative sounds when I’m concentrating on details, punk rock when I’m applying the first layers. Silence when I have to look for a long time. My work makes me happy, and this manifests itself in my artwork.

Do current social or personal events play a role in your art?
I titled the images in my latest series, which feature LEDs, switches, or intercoms, REPLACE IF FLASHING, NOISE, PUSH, and CONTROL.
Current sociopolitical themes such as communication, control, freedom, and choice, for example, have a huge influence on me. I didn’t know why I had to remove these buttons and switches from their context. Larger than life, solitary, deliberately not centered, but slightly offset in the middle, surrounded by structures and soft color segments. And now, in the context of the international events and decisions that we, or our elected representatives, have to face, I can see this new series of works in a different context. Although that wasn’t my initial intention.

Do you pass this explanation on to viewers?
I don’t want to explain anything. Take your time, look, find your own context.

Are there references to other artists in your art? In whose tradition do you see yourself?
Luise Bourgeois is one of my great role models. In her sculptural, installation, painting, and graphic works, she explored sexuality, security and dependence, the unconscious, and death. So she dealt with origins. This research, the desire to fathom the things behind things and then express them in artistic work, also drives me.
Helen Frankenthaler. Wonderful! She was inspired by Jackson Pollock and played a significant role in color field painting. She created something completely her own. That’s magnificent. I’d like to go there too—create something of my own.
The Pop Art artist Tom Wesselmann is also a source of inspiration for me.
In my work, I transform my preoccupation with the trivial and the isolated observation of everyday objects into the situational. A switch or a ping-pong table can be just as iconic to me as a mouth with a cigarette. Meaning or function suddenly become unimportant; only a feeling remains. I reinforce this with my choice of colors, which capture the color moods of my grandfather’s old photographs or Van Gogh’s paintings. I especially like this brash green, violet, and bright orange or lime green.

The Backgrounds seem to be important to you.
The background, with its structures and color shading, is the most important part of my work. This is where most of my time goes. Everything has to be just right. The view should revolve around my motif in the oval. I’d say I dig through the layers of paint.
(laughs) That’s where gardening comes into play again: I work my way through layers of soil and roots. This creates the depth and complexity in my paintings, the unconscious, the not-knowing. A bit like David Lynch with the soundscape that lies beneath each of his films. You sense there’s more than you might see.

An important piece of advice another artist gave you?
“Make composition sketches. Sit and look – that’s the most important work”, says my friend, the painter Felix Eckardt. I can only pass on his experience.
And here, too, I draw a parallel to gardening. Sitting in front of a painting and looking at it is like after sowing: The bottom comes to the top. Does that make sense? (laughs)
That only works with distance and focus.

What does your studio mean to you?
At home, I sleep and cook; this is where I live. I am undisturbed. When I paint, I sort through my chaos.

What makes you happy when you paint?
When the motif, the work, suddenly unfolds before me and is present. When all the tasks it has set for me have been answered.
When distance and emotion are balanced – the work is finished. Then I am in balance.