WORK

The picture shows two women in their home environment. They are standing in front of a sofa, holding hands. We don't know what their relationship is. Are they sisters, lovers, a married couple, or two friends who have agreed to cook together? Only the small family of stuffed rabbits sitting on the sofa makes us sure that they represent the conception of a traditional family.

The oil painting "Quinity" belongs to my series of family life. It shows a family of five, all looking at the viewer in a friendly way. Behind them, in a dense thicket of leaves, are also five goblins, a species of lemurs, with big red eyes looking over the heads of the people. Together, the red staring eyes form a triangle. This refers to the representation of the all-seeing God in Christian iconography.
Lemurs belong to the suborder of primates that includes Homo sapiens. So, it is not so far-fetched that the all-seeing God is represented by lemurs. For we find in the Old Testament the sentence: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them“.

Until now, the human life cycle has usually been portrayed in terms of male protagonists. At most, women appear as young mothers and companions, only to disappear again. Not a single man appears here. Little girls are hung upside down on a clothesline by a pregnant woman with cucumber slices in front of her eyes. After all, they are just girls. Taking care of children is part of the housework. And of course, women are expected to take care of their beauty. The old woman continues her work of caring for even the dead.

In "Ohmm..." a woman sits on a perch together with six chickens. There is no statement about where and how the perch is attached. This can be just above seat height, so that the woman can no longer touch the floor, or at a dizzying height, a situation that you may know from dreams.
In the end, not much happens. This cohabitation is not commonplace. Nevertheless, the partners have found a relationship that radiates equanimity in the here and now. Ohmmm....

In the bright sunshine, three children have reached the highest point on a swing and are now hurtling downhill at full speed. Three foxes are lurking in the dark.
The painting consists of two intertwined parts. On the one hand, there are three children on the swing in the bottom view (looking down at the viewer), and on the other hand, there are three foxes in the top view (looking up at the viewer). In a sense, the viewers are assigned a mediating function, taking the place of either the children or the foxes.

A woman sits in front of an empty plate, gazing thoughtfully into the sun. In the background, fishermen present a captured shark. If the live animal is met with martial weapons, the cooked one is tackled with more mannerly equipment.

The family portrait shows a mother with her three teenage children. A snake is coiling at her feet, and a mouse is watching curiously. A small hint that something may not be quite right in the family. The eldest daughter is clearly in a bad mood. She obviously didn't want to be in the photo taken by the father of the family. Is it just a moment of annoyance, or is the adolescent already in an outsider position?

The evening sun warmly illuminates the scenery, symbolizing the cycle of life. On a bench stands a young plant that has just sprouted from a seed. The cotyledons are easy to see. It stands for the beginning of life. Opposite, a sleeping young woman leans against the wall of an ossuary, which stands for death. The older woman, who so boldly presents her breasts, has shed all vanity and modesty. It is important to enjoy the remaining life to the fullest.

Word has gotten around: we live in a patriarchal world. Their power relations are maintained in a variety of ways. One of them is brutal violence against women. It can happen to anyone. No matter how conformist and submissive she tries to get through life.
The home often offers no more a non-violent refuge than the public space. Violence destroys physically and psychologically. Only the feet of four girls or women can be seen at the top of the picture. Are they standing there voluntarily or under duress to look at the victim? The idea for the painting came from a photo from a recent daily newspaper showing a corpse dumped in a busy pedestrian zone.

The picture shows an elderly man, slightly scorched by the sun, dozing in the water on a swimming ring. The subtitle "Resting from the battle of the sexes" is a commentary on the minimal efforts of most (powerful) men to do something about the discrimination of women. However, a larger wave would be enough to cause the floating tire to tip over.

Here, the combination of two scenes that are in themselves completely harmless arouse associations that point in the direction of migration across the Mediterranean. On the one hand, a family man rows his wife and daughters for a walk. On the other hand, women on Zanzibar learn to swim with the help of air-filled plastic containers. Torn from their respective contexts and combined with each other, we are confronted with the question of what is ethically acceptable. Is it possible or necessary to take Africans floating in the water into the boat? And how many, without thereby endangering one's own family?

The picture shows a little girl just after her circumcision. She stares into space in shock and pain. Behind her, an eyeless man stretches out women's skins to dry. The distorted skins represent the traditional view of women that justifies and demands physical injury.

Three siblings are holding hands. They're not feeling very comfortable and are looking to each other for support. They could be standing in a children's room in front of a colorful wallpaper, which shows the outlines of fleeing people at the bottom and bombers flying overhead.

In wars, soldiers carry weapons and others do not. People with weapons in their hands have more power than people without. The latter then depend on being treated decently. This is often not the case. When peace comes, the soldiers go home - pious as lambs or as wolves in sheep's clothing...
For centuries, boys have been trained to be aggressive. They were supposed to become soldiers. Increasing military fitness was one aspect of the introduction of popular sports such as football. Below right, male rabbits punch and kick each other.

The picture shows an unusual situation that is not contextualized. One can speculate at will: Is it a circus act? A fashion shoot? A chicken lover with her pets? An attempt to give a battery farm a humane face? Or something else entirely?