During the sixties I wanted to become a mathematician. I dived deep into the world of rationality, of abstraction, of the cold language of symbols.

At the beginning of the seventies I experienced that the creative process in mathematics has its secrets also, aside from rationality and abstraction.

Back then I came to know about the discoveries of neuro-physiology about the halves of the brain but did not attach any importance to it. At the same time I began to moult into an artist, experiencing happy feelings about having found my vocation as well as enormous anxieties; the material uncertainty caused my working part time as teacher until the beginning of the eighties.

In the eighties I began to understand what I was doing and why and what was the difference to my colleagues. In particular some books of the New Age movement were important to me. Robert M. Pirsig writes in „Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" much about the problems of our time, about the gap between rationality, intuition, science and art; I find many of my own experiences there as I am at home in both worlds.

His central problem, the quality and its meaning for our understanding of the world and our daily life has occupied me very much as mathematician as well as artist. The way I experienced quality therein, what it means to me and what it causes has been confirmed by his work, made more conscious and put into a larger frame.

At an important point Pirsig poses the question: „... how to paint a perfect painting?" and replies: „ It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally. That’s the way all the experts do it." This was the experience that changed me to be an artist: As long as I tried to get at something specific, I was very discontetnt - when I finally learned to let the pictures come, I was overwhelmed by their effect, meaning and power.

The contents of the pictures remained totally enigmatic at first. Only when I read books from the newer women's movement centering around the Great Goddess from theological, archeological and mythological sides there was shed light on some details and connections were drawn. The women's movement is described by Fritjof Capra (The Turning Point) as one of many parallel currents whose existence is proof and expression for a turn of time changing the whole foundation of our world: the New-Age-Vision, which gained contours at the end of the seventies / beginning of the eighties. The thesis of the fundamental transformation seems very convincing to me as my own world-outlook has changed during this time due to manifold experiences.

Also, I believe that my paintings can be understood best in this context. Contrary to many of my colleagues I do not work analytical, reflective, commenting, illustrating, hence with the means of the left brain, but solely with intuition. Analogous the events in dreams pictures form, being highly significant and transforming, surmounting the contents of my conscience by far.

At least this much seems to be clear: It centers aound the development of the individual, as is the case with dreams too. Pirsig (Zen...) „The real cycle your’re working on is a cycle called yourself. The machine that appears to be ‘out there’ and the person that appears to be ‘in here’ are not two separate things. They grow toward quality or fall away from quality together."

Painting as means to knowledge and instrument of individuation - this seems to meet the potentiality of the medium and to correspond to the time. In this I feel akin to colleagues like Beckmann and Rembrandt; they surely have known what Pirsig describes so brilliantly: „So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows naturally. Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all."