“Punk is not about clothes or hairstyles. It is about the energy drawn from a broken heart in the face of a relentless fate. It’s the ability to read between the lines and to stand one’s ground.” Glen Matlock (former bass player for the Sex Pistols)

“Obstacles are not blocking the path. They are the path.” Zen saying

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My work is deeply inspired by exploring life, honouring natural resources and experimenting with words, materials and ideas. But it’s also essential for me to transform my own memories of darkness and pain through art and stories.

The lizard under the stone: Where I’m coming from

With my eyes closed, I remember the vineyards of my childhood, the lizards under the stones and my dog. It was amongst the trees and near the flowing river, where I created my first imaginary worlds to flee the harsh reality of my home.

When I was eleven, I was taken away–from my violent father, but also from the river, the trees and my dog. On my own at 15 and being kicked out of school shortly before graduation, the floating began. Studying a bit of fine art and media design, I stumbled along.

All that changed in 2018, when I got severely ill and almost died. A sepsis put me into a coma. My reality bend and I awoke unable to move but with a glimpse that things could be different. While I fought my way back, I realised transformation is possible—by genuine connection to others and to ourselves, by stories, by nature and by art.

Raw earth and abandoned things: My creative process

When I create, I try to reach into that tender place inside, where all the pain hides, but also a sense of wonder, and a memory of the essence of it all.

My curiosity inspires me to experiment with unusual textures, surfaces and painting mediums. Often, I gather raw materials from nature like soil, twigs, fibres, and wool. And I collect cardboard, foil and other packaging materials and forage old tablecloths, bedlinen, or pillowcases in people’s attics or cellars. These abandoned textiles are sensual and soaked with emotions and memories. Fabric can be soothing and warm—but also stained, worn, and torn apart. It’s such an inspiration.

Textile Art

For my textile works, I use home-made soy milk, natural pigments and soft pastels, that I make out of earth and oatmeal. I love to create makeshift canvasses using natural and abandoned things onto which I stitch, embroider, draw and paint shapes, textures, and imaginary people—who often stem from my own stories.

Raw Strokes with Charcoal

When sketching with charcoal, I am inspired by what the Dadaists and Surrealists called automatic drawing and what the French comic artist Moebius described as meditation for artists which is a playful, and non-judgemental way to create. I grab some charcoal, begin and end somewhere. That’s it. Usually, I leave these spontaneous drawings as they are and enjoy their rawness.

Writing and poetry

Like my art, my writing is abstract or focusses on people. I write songs, poems and fragments inspired by what I see, hear, smell and feel in nature. And I create tales inspired by myths and science fiction about people who try to belong in a world that seems to tumble and disintegrate ever more.

Wild, dark and beautiful: Why I create

Oh, I want us to be amazed more often just seeing a bird in its flight, catching the whiff of a flower, or seeing the beauty in a smile. I want more love for the wild and dark things, the night, the banshees, and the haunting dreams, because they also belong.

And I wish we would grasp the wonder and enormity of being here at all. To touch earth, air, water, fire, plumage, fur, and skin in a world that brims with life and is not only made to die in. Where we scream and yell and realise what a mess, we have made—and where we create beauty after all.  

Yeah, let’s be fully alive in a different way – more authentic, nonconforming, deeply thoughtful, joyful and compassionate. Let us be boundlessly creative and curious and turn our darkness into light. Wouldn’t that be marvellous? 😊