"Fiumare" - dried up river beds in Calabria -Southern Italy.
The drawing of inner landscapes.
In Calabria, way down at the tip of Italy's boot, where I lived for many years, there are dried-up riverbeds, "fiumare" they are called.
They dramatically shape the already very barren landscape of the region around the Aspromonte mountain massif.
These riverbeds are of a profound beauty, and the lines, cracks, furrows that they draw in the landscape indicate, like traces, a life from other times.
"Fiumare" make me think of landscapes of our interior.
As if we too were part of this great drawing that makes up the whole world.
Not everything is visible to the eyes or explainable with words.
Landscapes can become reflections of inner landscapes.
I studied sculpture in Carrara and Palermo and lived in Italy for many years, in Florence, Pisa, Carrara, Palermo and Catanzaro.
Today, in addition to being a freelance artist, I work as a flight attendant for a major German airline, and the places I visit around the world, in conjunction with people I meet, continue to inspire me.
Flotsam and Jetsam
I spent the first years of my studies at the Carrara Academy of Art.
Many sculptors from all over the world meet here to work with marble.
I have lived in the middle of the marble quarries, where Michelangelo, in his time, went in search of the one block of marble in which he already recognized the sculpture he was searching to create, before he chiseled it out of the stone as if to free it.
Then I moved to Palermo, where I graduated from the local art academy.
Becoming a sculptor was once one of my dreams.
Things turned out differently, as so often in life, which never runs in a straight line, at least not for me.
Another of my many dreams was to travel, and this dream I lived without thinking about it, I just did it.
Combining travel and sculpture is difficult.
The many tools and materials needed for this do not fit into any travel suitcase.
Brushes and paints do, and painting backgrounds can be found everywhere, so I began to paint and experiment with many materials and techniques.
In total, I lived for twelve years in northern and southern Italy, where I met people and cultures that still influence my work today.
Eventually, I returned to Germany and landed in the world of aviation via detours and not at all in a straight line.
Since then, I have landed at many international airports and continue to gather my impressions, which in turn end up in my pictures and stories.
I believe that we are all collectors of impressions in our own way.
Life impressions.
Flotsam and jetsam washed ashore by the sea.
Perhaps it is the creator spirits of the underwater worlds that wash it up on the shore of our lives.
Like gifts that remind us of our dreams.
Of our talents.
In the fairy tales and stories we get closer to them.
We become deep-sea divers, searching for our own creative spirits, for that inner treasure chest that belongs only to us, where our talents are hidden like precious jewelry.
Safe.
This is the kind of journey my paintings tell about.