When Art Becomes a Journey

A fascinating part of traveling is not only discovering art, but engaging with it. After all, many great places are shaped by art or are art themselves. And yet, the most exciting part is creating something entirely new in these places, works of art that could never have been made anywhere else. And while they can be works in progress—pieces that can be continued anywhere, styles to be perfected or even modified—their essence comes from internalizing the moment in that place, breathing in the scent, and creating something new from it. To me, that is true creativity.

Every place has its own story to tell, and it wants to be put on canvas or paper, photographed, put into words, or transformed into design

For many years, different places have been hotspots for my creativity as a painter. This is where new series, techniques, and phases are born. Every trip to a new place is a creative excursion. The first one was 23 years ago when working for the musical The Lion King called me from the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia to my new home in Hamburg, a city that would become the center of my professional career and my own design agency.

My career choice back then was graphic design, and the parallels to my artistic work on canvas gradually merged with the profession. My painting has always been inspired by my love for graphics: different sensations, moments, and emotional worlds are the basis of my figurative and abstract works, a combination of details, transitions, and visible brushstrokes. Today, I am a designer, artist, agency owner, and manager, and together with my husband Volker, I run an art gallery in Hamburg.

In my ongoing creative development, Hamburg is where my heart lives. I need the view, the distance, the Elbe—not because I would paint all that, but because I chose it. For me, Hamburg is a piece of freedom—freedom that I bring to the canvas.

My second escape is not far from home and involves much more water. It is a small, sleepy village on the Baltic Sea. The clocks tick slower there than in the big city. It is more relaxed, with more leisure. Everything is possible, and nothing has to be; ideal conditions for being creative. Often, the ideas and first brushstrokes for tomorrow’s paintings are born here. Abstract today. Figurative tomorrow. A little bit of everything the day after that. Just like the weather in Northern Germany: unpredictable.

I think every place influences art in some way. For example, when I traveled to New York on the first of January in 2017, the Big Apple was dingy and rainy. The gloomy face of the cosmopolitan city produced such wonderfully different photographs, where raindrops became filters, and the snow brought the city to a standstill for moments. While others might wish for nice weather, for me, it can sometimes be the opposite. The result is not mainstream, but something special.

It was different in Croatia—pure sunshine. The ideas for drawing were found in the supermarket, and the inspiration appeared in the sand. Life is better on the beach. At least, that’s what they say. Maybe that’s why my “Brandgirls” series was created on a Croatian beach in 2019. With a penchant for bare skin, the pin-up-style ink drawings are undressed, each accompanied by a brand icon. For me, those little drawings marked the moment when I realized that my profession and my calling are inseparably linked. It was no surprise that the invention of the “Brandgirls” was an incomplete process. Originally conceived as a limited edition on handmade paper, they gradually evolved over the years into collages and, since last year, into oversized eye-catchers behind acrylic glass with luminous frames.

My art has almost always had a face—that of a woman. Women’s bodies, faces, and portraits have always fascinated me, and I depicted them with a high graphic element, high contrasts, and meticulous lines. The visible brushstroke was to be preserved, and the structure of the canvas was incorporated into the process. Over time, the formats, the canvases, and thus, the motifs became larger, more present, and more expressive.

Other support materials and the use of more and more techniques made my art more diverse. It was no wonder that after many years of figurative painting, new forms found their way into my work by 2022.

In search of new inspiration, I created my first series of abstract works during my stay in Austria. The different surroundings, shapes, and natural colors inspired voluminous brushstrokes, which became a characteristic feature. A reminiscence of the mountains, the forest, and the dissolving structures in fog and clouds. Clear lines and soft, almost watercolor-like elements contrast with the figurative elements.

Instead, Sardinia softened the abstract formal language. The sea and the waves left their mark not only on my memory but also on the canvas. Forms became more organic and softer, transitions smoother, and textures more fluid. These were the basis for the abstract areas of my current work, which are in symbiosis with figurative elements. I am increasingly following my typographic profession, dissolving the exactness of lines and lettering in my paintings and combining the figurative genre with the abstract.

The constant shifting and changing of materials and techniques, or the inspiration of new places, reflects the continuous transformation of an art world that presents itself as limitless, open, and constantly reinventing itself. But all these stories have one thing in common: an endless love of design in all its forms.

I have long since stopped letting myself be influenced by work cycles or fixed series. Creativity can present itself in many different forms—depending on the situation in life, the development, the vision, or the location. Every place has its own story to tell, and it wants to be put on canvas or paper, photographed, put into words, or transformed into design. Art is created where there is inspiration, and I find it almost everywhere.