The second period brought some important changes for me compared to the first period. The whole period was more focused on expressing the own personal view, whereas the first period was more focused on technical work. The beginning started with for me a bit strange experiments. We had to draw our room with coal on paper and make some variations of it – with closed eyes. The aim was to try to delete the rational control while drawing. Not the exact visualization of our room how it looked like in reality was important, but the try to make something more and more abstract out of it. This was important then for the next step. We had to draw a scene out of our memory we would recognize from our way to school and which would be special for us because we would pay attention to it every time. In several steps we should try to focus on the most important things like e.g. “tunnel view” or whatever and make the scene more and more abstract. We should try to get more aware how we look on the things, what would be important for us. I noticed that the way I recognized the chosen scene is a more or less general one, and that I have the same look a lot of times when I walk through the world. All this was just a preparation for the main thing in the second period. The following lesson consisted of a discussion over parts of the human body, finally we had to choose one part which would be special for us and we wanted to work with. My choice were the veins. I wanted to choose the heart first, this was my first intention during the discussion we had and my main point was the importance of feelings in life. But I noticed very soon that this choice was based on the very strong symbolic character the heart has got in society and that especially because of this my choice was very society based, so I changed and decided to choose the veins, because every part of the human body (and every part of life itself) is finally important to make the whole thing function, so I don’t have a special relation to one single part. The thing that interests me more is the connection between all these things, and the permanent movement and change of life and therefore also of our own body. In a certain way nothing is permanent, everything is a constant movement or process, nothing stays the same, it’s changing every second. I ask myself from time to time if all this follows a system or if we are confrontated with some sort of chaos we will never understand. So the essence of all that is how the things are connected, that’s why I chose the veinss. It was right for me to choose them, but I noticed very soon that I came to a border, I was running directly towards a wall. Again the big aim was to start with a visualization and then get more and more abstract, always trying to think “one level higher”. Like this: veins -> connection -> change / process -> movement -> chaos -> energy. The big problem I had was that I noticed that I was working with a very “big thing in life”, a big thought, which is not easy to deal with, especially if the aim is to visualize it. We also had to look for pictures in the web or whatever we wanted, also associations, and I realized that I paid special attention to the colors the pictures had. I interpreted this as a connection between the chaos-energy-thing I was thinking about and the “energetic” effect colors have to the human eye. At that moment something came to me. Two years ago I already dealt with the theme “life/human body/connection between the things” and made some sort of blacklight installation out of it. So I thought like “ok, I already did that, that’s nothing new for me”. But somehow I was not satisfied and I realized how complex it was to work with light. I was looking for a new and even more abstract way to visualize my thoughts which would make the whole thing a bit more touchable. This was really difficult for me because I already worked with that theme in a certain way and it’s never easy to think in completely new methods. Finally tried something I normally never do and did the complete opposite of what I thought I would “have to do because I already did it in that way and it was good”. I reduced my colors to black, white and transparent to avoid a symbolic effect of colors. And I changed my forms or motives or whatever it can be called; I stopped painting chaos and used just simple forms, mostly circles, because it’s the least chaotic form I can think about. The result was a completely new way I am now still standing on. I have the feeling to deal with the same theme than before, but a big range of new possibilities opened to me. Right now I don’t know exactly which direction this will take, but I feel like producing now and want to let me guide by this change and see what happens.
As a conclusion I want to say that I had several interesting points during the second period. One thing is that I’m now more aware of my way to look at things. I don’t know where it comes from, I have several interpretations, but it’s good to know how you see the world. Furthermore I realized that I see or better think about life in a very general way. What I mean is that I don’t have a special relation to a small part of it (at least not now, I guess these things can change). I try to make a very common theory about the things and then I try to make something personal out of it. I also realized that this is a very big step and not easy to do. Different than most other activities, rational thinking does not play the main role in Beeldende Kunst. The more important thing is to pay attention to the things in life people normally don’t see or don’t want to see. Let’s say, it’s like that if you want to see it like that ;-). I think I’m on a good way now, even if it’s not easy. But I’d like to express it like that: it’s not easy to des-rationalize rational thinking in a rational way.
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