Watercolor Paintings Greece

2022




The Souls Landscape

1996






"Ghost game", size 150X190cm, oil on canvas 


Questioning the picture "Ghost game"





2021



A) What are the people in the picture doing?

In the countryside near Monrovia/Liberia, a person has died of
Ebola. The body is lying in this  body bag. Friends, relatives and acquaintances accompany the deceased to his final resting place.


B) Why are most of those accompanying him wearing football shirts?

They symbolize the spread of Ebola (Liberia) in Africa and Covid-19 in the rest of the world (Wuhan FC, Atalanta Bergamo, Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, Arsenal London, New York City and national jerseys Brazil and Liberia) by football clubs.


C) Why is the scene taking place in a football stadium?

During the pandemic, all sporting events, including football, were forbidden, so the pitch is a red restricted area. However, the poeple who look like players at first glance are not
and leave the pitch. They are simple people from the village who have dreams: A lot of young African wants to play in a European football team. The picture is therefore also a projection of
dreams.


D) Why do the three corpse bearers representing the continents of Africa (Liberia), Asia (Wuhan) and Europe (Bergamo) wear red beaks?

They quote the Venetian plague doctors from 14th to 17th century. The length of the noses protects the doctors from the plague pathogens. They make a historical reference to the topic of epidemics. 




E)   What does the small picture in the background mean?

It is the Lamentation of Christ, a fresco by Giotto from 1300 from the Arena Chapel in Padua. Like the Mother of God, Mary Magdalene and the disciples mourn for Jesus, the people of Monrovia mourn for their friend, which is why the scene can be be interpreted as a modern lamentation of Christ.  


F) Why is there a "flying fox" hanging in the stadium?

The Ebola virus and the Covid-19 virus were both found on the flying fox. However, it is immune to these viruses.
The flying fox turns the world upside down.

G) What is behind the color and structural relationship between the "flying fox" and the body bag?

Beginning and end of an infection?


H)    What does the light blue disk at the top of the picture mean?

Is it a soccer ball without a game?
Is it the moon in the night sky?
Is it a "masked ball" symbolizing the global pandemic?



I) What does the sentence on the band mean?

This is a haiku, a Japanese three-line poem with the following statement:

      The nightingale sings

      this hopeful song

      in the hour of farewell...

The nightingale stands for the lovers (Romeo & Juliet), protects the sick and accompanies the dead safely into the realm of the dead.  


J) Why is the corner flag here a plant?

The "annual weed" (Erigeron annuus) is an invasive neophyte that is spreading uncontrollably in Europe, like Covid-19 around the globe.


K)    Who is the elderly gentleman with his hand raised and the Chinese labeled cap?

He is a memorial to the Chinese journalist who was the the first journalist to visit hospitals in Wuhan and wrote about the new Corona virus and has since disappeared.


L)    How many people have died from Covid-19 and Ebola?

From Covid-10: 6.8 million
From Ebola in Liberia and West Africa: 13,500



«Geisterspiel» 190x150cm, oil on canvas, from 16 November – 8 December 2024 at the International Exhibition for Contemporary Art: ART LAGUNA PRIZE, Arsenal Nord, Venice










Götti-Bach-Stäg, Tryptichon, oil on canvas, 288X125cm

2020

The swarms of barbels that romp around under the "Götti-Bach-Stäg"/Bridge in Thun in the Aare were photographed with my mobile phone on a beautiful November morning in 2019 from the Stäg / Bridge. Based on those photos, compositional variants were created, one of which was then implemented in oil. The first time I tried to work with large-scale oil glazes. Every third of the 

triptych also stands for itself. However, all three parts result in a superordinate whole, e.g. emptiness and abundance, individual and group, movement and silence etc. An important motivation for this picture theme were the ducks, which set the water surface in motion, so that some fish are optically deformed. but others appear as an intact shade.  








Oil studies from Greece and corresponding preliminary drawings in pencil ( Preliminar Sketches)


2018









Portrait sketches from various sketchbooks 





2003-2021




What if someone who is signed off notices? I was asked again and again. It happened to me twice in 20 years. Once the involuntary model did not show anything while drawing. When we both got off the train, the lady in white came straight to me, wanted to see the sketch and asked for it immediately, without saying a word about the quality of the portrait or its similarity to the model. I folded the sheet of paper, scratched it several times with my

fingernail, and tore the page out and gave it to her. The lady took the sheet of paper and disappeared into the crowd of travelers on the platform. Fortunately, the sketch hadn't turned out very well. So no reason not to do it for the next 20 years.

But what to do if someone moves while drawing?

Over the years I have found out that people keep going back to a resting position that emerges after 2-3 minutes of observation. This is suitable for making the first lines and determining the posture of the model. Soon the model looks out of the window on the train, for example, or at the

opposite side of the compartment, but then with a high probability it will take up this starting position again, here you just need a little patience and trust in the repeatability of the things in life. A journey is often accompanied by a sketchbook. For years also on the way to work from Thun to Burgdorf and back, mostly by regional train through the 


peaceful, gentle Emmental. This route is wonderfully suited to immortalizing fellow travelers in a sketchbook. I often had an easy job because my sleeping model didn't move. Another advantage is when people talk to each other, then the model is distracted from the observer who is drawing. When people notice that they are being drawn, they suddenly get embarrassed and often become unnatural, posture and gestures become artificial, then it is better to stop drawing. Sometimes I was so gripped that I was still working on it at home, adding a background or correcting a hand. The best experience for me was drawing on the boat trip from Venice to Patras. Water calms down and the passengers have plenty of time to sit on deck, in the café, at the bar or in the dining room. They endured being portrayed very patiently. Is there a more inspiring environment than the white ship architecture with the deep blue horizon in the background?

The sketches are not in chronological order and were created between 2003 and 2011. Most of the sketches, on the other hand, are the result of drawing in train station buffets and cafés, or at family celebrations or excursions. A special experience was accompanying a dying friend and drawing on the deathbed. One last hour with him while the two funeral home employees, dressed in black with a black tie, waited patiently outside.








Nude drawings from sketchbook


1996-2016






Watercolor - Paintings, Genoa

1996 / 1997



Rusty colossi after having traveled thousands of nautical miles land in the dry dock, e.g. in the port of Genoa, where the barges are derusted and repainted. I tried to capture the building site atmosphere in this industrial landscape, the workers on the scaffolding, the cranes, the mountains of ropes with the 5-man-sized anchors, the bollards, the endless rusty surfaces on large-format watercolor paper with quick brushstrokes, practically without preliminary drawings. 

Surreally, these water vehicles appear jacked up in the dry in the so-called Bacini, huge tubs from which the water has been pumped away from under the ship. The aim was to relate the tiny size of the viewer, the painter to the stranded colossi with their rusty signs of history, and to confront them with the lightness of the watercolor stains.








Diptichon: All in one, one in all, oil on canvas




1996


After the birth of my son, I gave a lot of thought to the individual and society, about self-realization and adaptation, 


about going against the current or going with the current. This diptichon was created from these considerations.









Diptichon: Alone in Space


1996







AKT bamboo pen drawing with brown ink, washed in places 


1995








Panel paintings: abstract watercolors on white-coated chipboards, 28x24cm


1999

The white coating material that is used for kitchen furniture cladding and cupboards, etc., i.e. for surfaces that can be cleaned practically in everyday life, is exactly the opposite of a common painting base for a watercolor, which absorbs the color accordingly and paints the well-known effects, or have it generated by chance.

The coating material is afraid of water, the stains of color contract, creating random structures that are spread flaky on the surface. This effect can be partially neutralized by using ox gall. Abstraction is the most obvious product of this process.

All «Untitled», without brackets: consecutive numbering of the images










Gigi, 113x92, oil on canvas



1995









Room installation: Stories in Red and White



1999








Die Erlauchten, 92x112, oil on canvas


1995




Informel, oil on canvas

Where fire, earth,
water and air meet Fresh wildness
Autumn poetry Colorful Jungle
(jungle camp)


1995







Ocher marin in a duel, oil on canvas


1995







Golden conscience: Switzerland and its Nazi gold 1997 - A project in the landscape


1997


The grappling of us Swiss with our past, especially the Swiss banks and the dormant Jewish assets from World War II, gave me the idea. To participate in this discussion in a non-verbal, artistic way. I am concerned with:

- To shed light on a layer of our history in question,

- To make an "overgrown" side visible and sensually tangible,

- To lead us Swiss out of speechlessness,


- To give room for discomfort, a place, a forum where we can learn to “accept it”, as Federal Councilor A. Koller said in his speech in early March 1997.


Idea: The anti-tank barrier above Hünibachstrasse in Hünibach
(Gemeinde Hilterfingen), consisting of 154 reinforced concrete shouldlen partly neatly cleaned and some gilded
become. (Historical background: the one mentioned above
anti-tank barrier was built in 1943, which coincides with the exact timing Nazi gold story coincides.

The project consists only of the design phase. 11.3. 1997










Singing dead gold: inkjet print Michelangelo on canvas, 450 x150 cm


1997





Abstract watercolors were created in an ashram in India

1990



These waterclors were created in India near Pune, a city about 5 hours’ drive southeast of Mumbay. Before painting, I visited a paper factory and was able to watch in an opan factory hall how the papers were scooped into large basins. 

The paper is characterized by a rough surface. The roughness then required large brushes and a generous way of working.








So-called Sock pictures



1993








Interieur Aquarell, Duftende Orangen, 29x39



1996





Landscape watercolours

1994-1996

Wohlensee, Schadau, Ernen, Thunersee, Wien, Bern, Emmenthal, Lipari, Korsika, Filicudi.










Stage designs for “ The Giants from the Mountains” by Luigi Pirandello, (Stadttheater Bern 1987)



1987











Room installations 1987: face and mask



1987

Old Tobler factory building,
Draft profile for space mask,
Mask installation

“Rebgases” and fish paste: material for room installation








Wall installation: Honorary professors with frown lines on old factory walls



1987







Watercolor Paintings Greece

2022




The Souls Landscape

1996






"Ghost game", size 150X190cm, oil on canvas 




2021



A) What are the people in the picture doing?

In the countryside near Monrovia/Liberia, a person has died of
Ebola. The body is lying in this  body bag. Friends, relatives and acquaintances accompany the deceased to his final resting place.


B) Why are most of those accompanying him wearing football shirts?

They symbolize the spread of Ebola (Liberia) in Africa and Covid-19 in the rest of the world (Wuhan FC, Atalanta Bergamo, Real Madrid, Paris Saint Germain, Arsenal London, New York City and national jerseys Brazil and Liberia) by football clubs.


C) Why is the scene taking place in a football stadium?

During the pandemic, all sporting events, including football, were forbidden, so the pitch is a red restricted area. However, the poeple who look like players at first glance are not
and leave the pitch. They are simple people from the village who have dreams: A lot of young African wants to play in a European football team. The picture is therefore also a projection of
dreams.


D) Why do the three corpse bearers representing the continents of Africa (Liberia), Asia (Wuhan) and Europe (Bergamo) wear red beaks?

They quote the Venetian plague doctors from 14th to 17th century. The length of the noses protects the doctors from the plague pathogens. They make a historical reference to the topic of epidemics.




E)   What does the small picture in the background mean?

It is the Lamentation of Christ, a fresco by Giotto from 1300 from the Arena Chapel in Padua. Like the Mother of God, Mary Magdalene and the disciples mourn for Jesus, the people of Monrovia mourn for their friend, which is why the scene can be be interpreted as a modern lamentation of Christ.  


F) Why is there a "flying fox" hanging in the stadium?

The Ebola virus and the Covid-19 virus were both found on the flying fox. However, it is immune to these viruses.
The flying fox turns the world upside down.
G) What is behind the color and structural relationship between the "flying fox" and the body bag?

Beginning and end of an infection?


H)    What does the light blue disk at the top of the picture mean?

Is it a soccer ball without a game?
Is it the moon in the night sky?
Is it a "masked ball" symbolizing the global pandemic?

I) What does the sentence on the band mean?

This is a haiku, a Japanese three-line poem with the following statement:

      The nightingale sings

      this hopeful song

      in the hour of farewell...

The nightingale stands for the lovers (Romeo & Juliet), protects the sick and accompanies the dead safely into the realm of the dead.  


J) Why is the corner flag here a plant?

The "annual weed" (Erigeron annuus) is an invasive neophyte that is spreading uncontrollably in Europe, like Covid-19 around the globe.


K)    Who is the elderly gentleman with his hand raised and the Chinese labeled cap?

He is a memorial to the Chinese journalist who was the the first journalist to visit hospitals in Wuhan and wrote about the new Corona virus and has since disappeared.


L)    How many people have died from Covid-19 and Ebola?

From Covid-10: 6.8 million
From Ebola in Liberia and West Africa: 13,500


«Geisterspiel» 190x150cm, oil on canvas, from 16 November – 8 December 2024 at the International Exhibition for Contemporary Art: ART LAGUNA PRIZE, Arsenal Nord, Venice










Götti-Bach-Stäg, Tryptichon, oil on canvas, 288X125cm

2020

The swarms of barbels that romp around under the "Götti-Bach-Stäg"/Bridge in Thun in the Aare were photographed with my mobile phone on a beautiful November morning in 2019 from the Stäg / Bridge. Based on those photos, compositional variants were created, one of which was then implemented in oil. The first time I tried to work with large-scale oil glazes. Every third of the 

triptych also stands for itself. However, all three parts result in a superordinate whole, e.g. emptiness and abundance, individual and group, movement and silence etc. An important motivation for this picture theme were the ducks, which set the water surface in motion, so that some fish are optically deformed. but others appear as an intact shade.  








Oil studies from Greece and corresponding preliminary drawings in pencil ( Preliminar Sketches)


2018









Portrait sketches from various sketchbooks 





2003-2021




What if someone who is signed off notices? I was asked again and again. It happened to me twice in 20 years. Once the involuntary model did not show anything while drawing. When we both got off the train, the lady in white came straight to me, wanted to see the sketch and asked for it immediately, without saying a word about the quality of the portrait or its similarity to the model. I folded the sheet of paper, scratched it several times with my

fingernail, and tore the page out and gave it to her. The lady took the sheet of paper and disappeared into the crowd of travelers on the platform. Fortunately, the sketch hadn't turned out very well. So no reason not to do it for the next 20 years.

But what to do if someone moves while drawing?

Over the years I have found out that people keep going back to a resting position that emerges after 2-3 minutes of observation. This is suitable for making the first lines and determining the posture of the model. Soon the model looks out of the window on the train, for example, or at the

opposite side of the compartment, but then with a high probability it will take up this starting position again, here you just need a little patience and trust in the repeatability of the things in life. A journey is often accompanied by a sketchbook. For years also on the way to work from Thun to Burgdorf and back, mostly by regional train through the 


peaceful, gentle Emmental. This route is wonderfully suited to immortalizing fellow travelers in a sketchbook. I often had an easy job because my sleeping model didn't move. Another advantage is when people talk to each other, then the model is distracted from the observer who is drawing. When people notice that they are being drawn, they suddenly get embarrassed and often become unnatural, posture and gestures become artificial, then it is better to stop drawing. Sometimes I was so gripped that I was still working on it at home, adding a background or correcting a hand. The best experience for me was drawing on the boat trip from Venice to Patras. Water calms down and the passengers have plenty of time to sit on deck, in the café, at the bar or in the dining room. They endured being portrayed very patiently. Is there a more inspiring environment than the white ship architecture with the deep blue horizon in the background?

The sketches are not in chronological order and were created between 2003 and 2011. Most of the sketches, on the other hand, are the result of drawing in train station buffets and cafés, or at family celebrations or excursions. A special experience was accompanying a dying friend and drawing on the deathbed. One last hour with him while the two funeral home employees, dressed in black with a black tie, waited patiently outside.








Nude drawings from sketchbook


1996-2016






Watercolor - Paintings, Genoa

1996 / 1997



Rusty colossi after having traveled thousands of nautical miles land in the dry dock, e.g. in the port of Genoa, where the barges are derusted and repainted. I tried to capture the building site atmosphere in this industrial landscape, the workers on the scaffolding, the cranes, the mountains of ropes with the 5-man-sized anchors, the bollards, the endless rusty surfaces on large-format watercolor paper with quick brushstrokes, practically without preliminary drawings. 

Surreally, these water vehicles appear jacked up in the dry in the so-called Bacini, huge tubs from which the water has been pumped away from under the ship. The aim was to relate the tiny size of the viewer, the painter to the stranded colossi with their rusty signs of history, and to confront them with the lightness of the watercolor stains.








Diptichon: All in one, one in all, oil on canvas




1996


After the birth of my son, I gave a lot of thought to the individual and society, about self-realization and adaptation, 


about going against the current or going with the current. This diptichon was created from these considerations.









Diptichon: Alone in Space


1996







AKT bamboo pen drawing with brown ink, washed in places 


1995








Panel paintings: abstract watercolors on white-coated chipboards, 28x24cm


1999

The white coating material that is used for kitchen furniture cladding and cupboards, etc., i.e. for surfaces that can be cleaned practically in everyday life, is exactly the opposite of a common painting base for a watercolor, which absorbs the color accordingly and paints the well-known effects, or have it generated by chance.

The coating material is afraid of water, the stains of color contract, creating random structures that are spread flaky on the surface. This effect can be partially neutralized by using ox gall. Abstraction is the most obvious product of this process.

All «Untitled», without brackets: consecutive numbering of the images










Gigi, 113x92, oil on canvas



1995









Room installation: Stories in Red and White



1999








Die Erlauchten, 92x112, oil on canvas


1995




Informel, oil on canvas

Where fire, earth,
water and air meet Fresh wildness
Autumn poetry Colorful Jungle
(jungle camp)


1995







Ocher marin in a duel, oil on canvas


1995







Golden conscience: Switzerland and its Nazi gold 1997 - A project in the landscape


1997


The grappling of us Swiss with our past, especially the Swiss banks and the dormant Jewish assets from World War II, gave me the idea. To participate in this discussion in a non-verbal, artistic way. I am concerned with:

- To shed light on a layer of our history in question,

- To make an "overgrown" side visible and sensually tangible,

- To lead us Swiss out of speechlessness,


- To give room for discomfort, a place, a forum where we can learn to “accept it”, as Federal Councilor A. Koller said in his speech in early March 1997.


Idea: The anti-tank barrier above Hünibachstrasse in Hünibach
(Gemeinde Hilterfingen), consisting of 154 reinforced concrete shouldlen partly neatly cleaned and some gilded
become. (Historical background: the one mentioned above
anti-tank barrier was built in 1943, which coincides with the exact timing Nazi gold story coincides.

The project consists only of the design phase. 11.3. 1997










Singing dead gold: inkjet print Michelangelo on canvas, 450 x150 cm


1997





Abstract watercolors were created in an ashram in India

1990



These waterclors were created in India near Pune, a city about 5 hours’ drive southeast of Mumbay. Before painting, I visited a paper factory and was able to watch in an opan factory hall how the papers were scooped into large basins. 

The paper is characterized by a rough surface. The roughness then required large brushes and a generous way of working.








So-called Sock pictures



1993








Interieur Aquarell, Duftende Orangen, 29x39



1996





Landscape watercolours

1994-1996

Wohlensee, Schadau, Ernen, Thunersee, Wien, Bern, Emmenthal, Lipari, Korsika, Filicudi.










Stage designs for “ The Giants from the Mountains” by Luigi Pirandello, (Stadttheater Bern 1987)



1987











Room installations 1987: face and mask



1987

Old Tobler factory building,
Draft profile for space mask,
Mask installation

“Rebgases” and fish paste: material for room installation








Wall installation: Honorary professors with frown lines on old factory walls



1987