 I am a dreamer. In my “Dream Paintings”, the world is gentle, colourful and pure just as I would like the real world to be. That has given me the strength to see it as it is. In order to create ‘beauty’ and ‘purity’ the initial work I undertook was internal. The slightest negativity would have shattered this task, for beauty and purity are as fine as threads of gossamer. This is my life saver. It is my refuge, my path of discovery of the external world and of my inner self. My luminous path. This is a necessary journey, a spiritual way, a vocation. Early on I discovered that inspiration, my muse, is my greatest friend. From then on we have kept up a rich, invigorating exchange. I began with illustrative drawings in coloured ink, plastic-coated for luminosity. Then, following certain Yugoslav painters, I took up paintings on glass which intensifies colours mysteriously. This magical quality lent itself naturally in the development of traditional religious subjects. My first exhibition in 1974 at Galerie Helmina in Strasbourg was a sell-out. Glass paintings suited my style; dream landscapes, of which the earliest were essentially naive. They made an appearance in Alsace but were mainly bought by a German collector, Max Seidel, who was writing a book on glass paintings when he saw my work at the Musée d’Imagerie Populaire de Pfaffenhoffen. He organised an exhibition at Werdenfelser Museum at Garmish in 1979. Between 1977 and 1981 the greater part of my paintings went to Germany. (See Pictures of this period together with Press cuttings.) Since the technique of glass painting is very strict (you begin by setting down the details and finish with the background; furthermore, it’s done behind glass), there were only 200 or so paintings from this period. These were happy years when I felt fulfilled thanks to my glass paintings but this mixture of naïve and fantastic elements did not allow me to find a footing in the world of Art. 1981 was a pivotal year demanding change in order to evolve. I decided to paint on canvas and adopted my pseudonym – Baumgarten. I banished esoteric themes as well as metaphysical probings from my paintings. This allowed me to stand back and express myself with a lighter touch. Baumgarten worked on “dreamt reality”. Those canvases depict countless walks, the banks of the Rhine and its luxuriant deep forests, lucid waters and villages, flowers, gardens, cats, corn; the poetry of the ordinary, the changing seasons, the charm of the countryside in France and elsewhere. There, on these canvases, I depicted my many memories and a longing to preserve Nature. My work was instinctive, full of joy and love. It was like plunging into a pond full of fertile images and I loved it. So did others. There followed several exhibitions in France, most of them a sell-out. Roughly 250 canvases and some glass paintings between 1982 and 1986. (See photos, pictures on canvases) 1986. Paris, the sudden lack of greenery round me made me turn to nature more than ever on my canvases and the lack of greenery... my paintings became more elusive, more natural. This went down well in Japan. I really was living a dream. 1986-2000: a further 600 paintings were sold in Japan. (See the remaining which are for sale.) This period came to an end in 2000 and I couldn’t help asking myself if the pond had dried up. I now eliminated details from my paintings and made them more stylized. I also returned to the brighter colours of my glass paintings. This was the period of landscapes of Haute Provence (See canvases here). Despite local exhibitions, I did not regain my former enthusiasm and I was left wondering if I’d reached a dead-end. But creativity is my lifeline. I had moved to La Laoupi – an ancient farm, in the middle of nowhere, a desert island. Scorching sun, violent winds, an immense sky, the land – parched. Walks along the plateau where you hardly meet a soul. Silence. A time for meditation. The austere beauty of such landscapes stripped to their bone. The brilliant light constantly changing. And the solitude of my atelier. Everything pushed me towards the bare essential. I stripped my work down to that bare essential. Threw out or burnt the rest, watching the flame and revelling in its wake. I strained every nerve to absorb, feel deeply, but no longer with the conscious processes of mind and body. I studied the clouds as they wove their shapes, the swaying corn, the forest in the grip of the wind. And there were the shadows over the fields. I felt part of nature; to see with new eyes and to empty myself to the lees. One day, I put a layer of black over some old sketches from the Dream period. In the sudden joy of discovering the power of black, I realized my muse had not abandoned me. I moved away from past work towards something more abstract and worked hard to discover the new centre of gravity within me. To reach for something deeper, greater. Kaleidos – my paintings of self-healing took shape. Energy in its pure state. I used primary colours with simple shapes. 2004-2007. During those three years I only produced 25 canvases. (See some of them here) From now on I could confront the dark side of my inspiration and use it in my work. Creation-Destruction-Re-creation. 2007-2009 Having accepted the darkness, the colour black, and the addition of torn strips from earlier paintings I now learnt to accept chance on my canvas, wondering if that too was a part of me. A leap into the unknown. 2009-2012: a period of gathering these remains, making them a part of me so as to renew them into further abstract developments and new configurations. 2012 “Création sur cendres et ruines” – a small exhibition in Séguret – (See some of the paintings on black papers here.) And so the life of an artist continues. The pond is once again full of light and shadows with a thousand changing shapes. The bottomless pit. Blackness and brilliant colours. (Translation by Dora Dicum) |