My work is often inspired by personal experiences and everyday life, but also by stories I hear from friends and acquaintances. That could be urban legends, personal theories or things that really happened. I have this friend for example who believes the second son of a family is always the most beautiful for some reason. I love this kind of strange ideas and collect them.
Another source of inspiration is science and good documentaries. I love to learn new facts about topics like psychology, natural science and etymology. The questions of home and where I belong to is an issue for me since my childhood. This was the foundation on which I started a series of pictures about homes.
I called it “Bleibe”. In German, this means “a place to live” and is the imperative of “stay”. This picture is part of the series.
My starting point on this was the history behind two related German words, “heimlich” and “unheimlich”. “Unheimlichâ is the German word for sinister or uncanny, but this expression originally meant “outside of my home”. In contrast, “heimlich” originally meant “inside my home”, but is also a German word for “secret” or “furtive”.
Thinking about this, I came up with this picture of a house inside out. On the artistic side, I like to use different patterns and structures, so this added to the mix. I think, it always helps me to have a concept to start with my work. It does not have to be big or even particularly meaningful one, but it helps me to set a frame and not get lost.
