This year i got asked to design a cultural award for the “Marktgemeinde Scharnstein”. Scharnstein had a blacksmith industry producing scythes for all around the world in earlier days. You´ll find two scythes on the emblem of the Village. So I decided to go along with this tradition and forge a sculpture instead of making a wooden one. The cultural committee decided that my draft should become the final award. So here it finally is! A traditionally forged sculpture, a combination of a scythe and the symbol of a ram, which stands for fertility.

Thanks to the blacksmith Stefan Haan in Vorchdorf  who let me work in his forge and helped me out in those little moments…

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In february i started my creative courses for kids at the “Almtaler Kinderatelier” in Scharnstein. There i´m working with 6-11 kids between 5-10 years old. Biggest aim is to support them in their vision, in their way of working. So what we do, depends on them, drawing, painting, photographing, working with clay and other materials. And… it´s fun! Sometimes i ask myself who´s the one getting taught. So i really enjoy that kind of “working” with children and the way the kids are able to break up myself  and my way of thinking.

Is a series of 9 mixed media works on paper, where artindifferent materials get mixed up with pigment and liquids. I really love to experiment with materials hard to control, materials which cross my intentions in a picture prozess.

In January I got ask to make 20 talking sticks, kind of small and handy sculptures. The talking stick origins in the culture of the native Americans. It was a shamanic cult object, the native Americans used when the group was talking about essential things. The one holding the stick in his hand is talking or not, when he lays down the stick, the next one is on the run. The essence of the talking stick ritual is not speaking, more its focusing and paying attention. This attention will be paid by the speaker inward in order to detect what is happening in this moment, to find out the essentials he wants to talk about. From the listener it is the attention to the outside, addressed to the speaker, to recognize what`s the most important, the essential for the group and the community. So it´s like a tool to get back to the groud to find a consencius.

So i carved 20 sticks with different, unique shapes out of lime tree, 20 – 30 cm high. and they work! People love to hold them in their hand, get grounded and have something to hold on while talking

“Fluently liquid” is a series of 16 works on paper dealing with several fluids and liquids interacting with each other. Characters,  motives and patterns arise out of those floating structures and lines.  I don`t have much control about those things happening on the paper and I think that´s what i really like on this series.

A new serial dealing with the colour yellow.  Going away from the sunny and friendly impressions to those sick and ugly characteristics of this color. The purulence, the ulcer, the viral, but also the desert. So pictures emerge with titles like “Gelb geht über” or  “Gelb bricht durch”. “Unter Wasser Wallung” for example shows a scenery of dying fish and foggy ghosts embedded in dusty structures. 100 x 160 cm, 2008, mixed media on canvas

Haven´t made collages on computer for quite a while, but it´s always interesting what comes out when you start combining and remixing your own pictures, blackbooks, photographs and so on.

Inspired trough the “Analog vs. Digital” project I started a largescale painting dealing with backlight. I experiment with several more or less transparent materials and liquids on canvas. The lightning and depth of the picture are stunning.

“Analog vs. Digital” is a cooperation with the Tag Tool crew from Tulln. We combined analogue and digital painting by putting up a canvas and setting up a rear projection. The canvas gets painted with ink, acryl and latex paint in interaction with the Tagtool. Two persons working on the same picture, which changes all the time. They work together in some case or against each other. One moment the picture seems to be more analog and next it seems to be more digital.Two sessions happened till now. First time at “Wassergasse” in Tulln August 2008. Second time live at Reheat Festival 2008 in Nickelsdorf on 23rd of September. Painting by Giovi, IInk, Maki and Elffriede. Sound Design by Ritsche Koch with DJ Illvibe on the turntables.

A series of bw-photographs staged in the way i normally start my Blackbooks, ready to get printed on 70 x 100 cm to become overpainted. The works shown called “Fischlacalmar” and “Feuchtwaldgebitas”. so maritime images meet mountainstructures, pictures of sculptures, structures and dead animals

So now it´s done all the paintings are  reprographed! Got professionall help from Christoph Fuchs (Fox), a friend of mine, who assisted reprographing the Klimt pictures before the republic Austria gave them back to the heiress Maria Altmann.

Here it is! My first book is printed a few times. It´s like a summary,  representing all the different medias I´m working with. So  “in between”… is describing the space, where my work takes place: various fields of experimentation between photography, digital art, blackbookdrawing, painting and sculpting.

Recently i´m not able to work at my studio continuously, moving  a lot at the moment, focused on input. I started working on another blackbook, no diary,  not really a sketchbook, only  something i can take with me and work on. something like an informal playground for new ideas.  drawings and collages of self made photographs merging with material experiments and sketches of sculptures.  The get mixed up with newspaper fragments, pictures out of magazines, and other interesting things crossing my way.

So it´s done,  the calmar raised out of one 200 cm piece of oak! I think it´s time to forge again.

view of some jet unfinished mixed media output in my studio. Nautilus, octopus, stingrays, sepias, snappers crossing rough structures und grounded colours. So maritime meets grounded earth all up the mountains.

Longexposure lightwright behind a sculpture emerging out of one piece of oak

The picture shows quite good the energy emerging at this point of my travel. Oil on canvas, about 80 x 80 cm, 2007 in New Zealand, still there, painted while livin at the studio of Pete Wheeler and Greg Lewis in Dunedin. Thanks guys for letting me stay and work at your studio!

Straight back from New Zealand!! Land of the amazing light! I only travelled the South Island, but I had 3 month to do that.  So i came across a lot of amazing places and hang out with interesting people like the photographer Mickyla Cox, Pete Weeler and Greg Lewis, two New Zealand painters, I came across the Blacksmith Peter Laszlo who got me into forging, I started to surf and i came across Maori carvings and the paintings of Goldie. So i had a very awesome trip, thanks to Matt, Matt Sea Dog, Dan & Dee, Pete & Rosi and Sarahh!!!!

So I´m back, relaxed and really inspired!!! ready to create! And i think it´s a good point to start this blog!