In summer 1975 I was busy with print-paintings, time consuming work.
A couple of friends visiting me for an acid trip together. Great day. I worked on my prints, after couple of hours washed tools. Tea, music, jokes.
Felt hot. Palms radiating with warmth.
I placed my right hand, just to cool it down, into can of black graphic paint. Thick and heavy, slowly getting thinner from warmth and motion of my hand.
Then I threw my hand against white paper.
Black silhouettes jumped up. Shamans.
Dry paper I placed between others and forgot. |
1978/9 winter in West-Berlin and another beginning. I was supposed to make a poster for my next exhibition.
Mixing deep blue water-paint in a bowl, having white papers on the table, smoking joint, listening to Bob Dylan, thinking on the project.
My elbow contacting the bowl, blue paint flowing on table. No run for a cleaning.
Placed right palm in colour and threw my hand against paper, First Touch above, looking like a face?
Did more touches that night - to satisfy my destination. |
Fly high, my inner Dragon! 1979 so called Zeitgeist took over my being, painting, longing. Could hardly recognize myself. Already painting long years on canvas, sometimes large sizes, never using black.
See how fascinating it was pure or mixed with a bit of blue to get it cool, with red to have some warmth. |
How different way of creating was then. Very little common with my graphics or paintings.
Feeling and state of mind was different, concentration and state of being was different, aggressively present. Seven years doing Za-zen; being practical, not searching for an enlightement, using meditation like a bath cleaning me of feelings, imagination, trips.
Felt these days like a Zen monk, throwing my hand against paper, expressing my being here and now, in no time at all. |
Physical consequences of work:
after several weeks of 'washing' my hands many times a day in water-paint, water soap, graphic paint, turpentine - skin started to pill off and brake.
Well, enough, pile of papers under table was half a meter high.
And what with my newly awakened love to black?
Started to use a painting knife -
but it is another story - another page - the Knife-Story. |
