Artist Statement:  Carnival Series

The Carnival Series has been with me, it seems always.

My grandparent owned a small travelling family carnival called “Amerikansk” in Middlefart Denmark in the early thirties. My father, when just a boy, grew up manning the shooting gallery.

As a child in Germany, I was surrounded by many images and tales of this past fantasy,  carnival, circus like life style.

Now in my life, a carnival evokes childhood memories of sadness, of happiness, of  surreal feelings, of bright colors yet of  extreme darkness.  Feelings that sometimes I can only explain in my art work. It’s these feelings of real and unreal that I like to portray.

In my characters, I like to show emotion, strong feelings of  happiness, desperation or even sadness.

I work in reverse, backwards, upside down and actually welcome unexpected results.

When subtracting ink, I’m adding to the image. Each Monoprint I start with an idea, drawings, cut out images etc that I use as departure points  but then the process of working the inks can take me into a whole new different feeling.

Artist Statement: Billboard and Mannequin Series

 Walking down the crowded streets of Athens, I realized that there was actually another totally disconnected vibration, huge faces looming over buildings, forgotten billboards showing layers of many lives, mannequins dressed in the latest fashions crowding in store windows as if they were trying to communicate.

I was moved by their overpowering presence looming larger than life. Almost like a parallel existence, that is just there, but does not get acknowledged. Staring at me from all corners.

 I took these photos in Europe in 2014. I printed them using an Epson printer on rice paper. After that I added an encaustic layer. More like an encaustic monoprint. Instead of layering the wax onto the surface, the wax penetrates the paper giving it a translucent look. These images can be traditionally framed or left unframed because the wax protects the image.