Between all the house restoration work, I had time to do another painting. When doing a full house restoration we really start from the bottom, removing everything what was added to the original structure of house, leaving us with bare walls, without floors and ceilings, left with the rough, basic foundation.

When we are done with our restoration work, a shiny and beautiful surface is visible and make people feel welcomed.

Space to store my paintings wasn’t a real problem as I nearly sold everything after a short while, but not all, of course 😉
Those paintings which are still with me I put back in big cartons and shuffled them around in our cave. But then, we had a water problem and it was just in the last-minute I rescued my paintings for being destroyed.

You might have noticed: we, Hagen and me are restoring an old house here in Fitou for our daughter Isabell and her husband Dick.
Isabell and Dick helped as often as possible and together we did all the planning but currently they are travelling the world.

Wir haben einen Garten hinter unserem Haus und an diesem bauen wir nun schon seit ungefähr sechs Jahren herum. Er liegt am Hang und war fünfzehn Jahre sich selbst überlassen. Alle Terrassenmauern waren eingestürzt und bis zur unteren Gartengrenze heruntergerutscht. Die Pflanzen wegzumachen, die den Eingang wie bei Dornröschen zugewuchert haben hat allein einen Tag gedauert. Aber dann konnten wir endlich eintreten und das Disaster begutachten.

After a long pause, caused by a water damage in my little atelier and due to lots of renovation work, I started painting again.

This time, I layered oil paints over ash and washed them away again and again to create subtle effects. It’s a play of appearing and disappearing, of strong presence and nebulous absence. Like memories, they come and go, sometimes they are very clear and sometimes you wondering if an event really happened or if it is just in your imagination.