Well…. lots of things….

Allthough born in Berlin, Germany I  grew up in a very small village in the northern german countryside but also spent 3 years in Dar-es Salam, Tansaniia. After my schooling I moved back to Berlin and lived for a short while in the than last remaining house at Potsdamer Platz which is now the ultra modern centre of Germanys Capital.

Right around the corner was the BAUHAUS museum where I spend many Sunday mornings ( sometimes only to have a Latte and Croisont) to admire the timelessness of the designs. The furniture, art and designs where still so fresh and new dispute the fact that it was made in the 1920′s and 30′s. No clutter – just function and form framing the function. I also loved the fact that the boundaries between fine art, design and architecture where not so pronounced and that artists from various fields cross polinated ideas and concepts.

During my Berlin days I started designing and making lighting designs for my pre 1920 apartment with its high ceilings and parquet floors and was always keenly interested in new lighting designs.

After long and extensive travels through all of Africa I arrived in Cape Town in 1994 and stayed in an old style Backpackers where I started working for rent.
A stint in the travel industry didn’t work and again I put my focus on creating lighting. This time combining cement and state of the art LED’s.

More and more my designs became simpler and more uniformly surfaced as well as bigger in size.

Other artists which had a strong influence on my designs and techniques are Ian Pells, George Hay and various nature artist like Andy Goldsworthy ( who I really admire ) as well as the natural beauty of my new home town, Cape Town.

This connection between these seemingly opposing mediums fascinates me and is  the inspiration behind many of my pieces.
If I take a look at the sand on the beaches or the desert I love to walk on and focus on a few of the grains, their patterns and colours, shapes and forms are never the same. The closer I look the more puzzling it becomes and only if I step back and focus on the distance a certain uniformity unfolds.

As this planet is composed of trillions of billions of grains of sand and rock which we walk upon all day without ever giving it much of a recognition we are surrounded and engulfed by the light our sun and the other millions and billions of stars let shine upon us.

Combining these mediums in my works to create simple yet  intriguing sculpture has helped me to understand many things in life. I  find myself surrounded by so many things which often complicate my existence. Whether it is the general state of our Planet,  or the way most societies are sadly still ruled  by greed and fear instead of love and compassion and the fact that most people look to the outside for solutions instead of reflecting inwards is what I would like to communicate. There is so much clutter and confusion going down…. I’d like to no not add to that and point the onlooker towards the beauty in simple things.