Beaches and Shore-Lines from Different Places in the World. Assembled and United to Form a Coastline of 35 Meters
The line can be seen as a symbol of separation. A border. Between countries, the land and the sea, between religions and between people. This side and the other side. I use the line as a symbol of connection. That ties things together. That connects people. Like telephone lines.The red line we have to follow through our life The coastline that surrounds islands countries and continents and keeps them together. A symbol of togetherness.
I am playing with this symbol in fantasy, doing the impossible, connecting the coastlines of this world in my paintings. Connecting shorelines from different places on our planet to one only coastline.
I started the project on Elba island. With its beautiful turquoise waters, equal to the Costa Smeralda.. I see beaches here that could equally be in England, Africa, or south America. In fact. Coastlines all over in the world look the same. So I started to attatch coastlines of Elba, with beaches in Cap Corse, Piombino on the Tuscany continent, coastlines in Ireland near Cork and coastlines in Brazil, Buzios and Rio de Janeiro.
Each of my big format paintings, done in oil or acrylic on canvas has its own exact coordination with a small documentation map. So once you go there, you find the place. Some places thou you won’t find without immagination. The „missing links”. The paintings of beaches that I have invented, and put in in between, to unite for example a coastline in Brazil with one on Elba island. It needs Fantasy and Immagination to find maybe these exact immaginary coordinations.
Also people, like the coastlines, are the same all over the world. We should not fight over borders, religions or resources. We should develope our fantasies and immagination instead and follow our dreams. We should get connected to stay in line. I think it started already with the World Wide Web.
The Sea – a Beautiful Dream
As a continental European, born in Vienna, far away from any coast, the sea for me has always been a beautiful dream, symbol of ardent infinity, attraction and vacation point. Since childhood on a synonym of freedom.
From my youngest days on, as a boy, I have been diving into it, or floating on it’s surface. Later I have been measuring my skills and abilities with rubber rafts or surfboards and until today I have been, and am still cruising the sea full of passion with different kind of boats, preferably though under sail.
I have learned to feel the sea. To breath it, to respect it and to love it. I protect it and enjoy it. With its endlessly repeating waves and reflexions, that reeinvent, themselves any second to a new and never before seen splendor of kaleidoscopic colours.
That endless repetition though does not evoke a deja vu, often I find it more thrilling and entertaining than some kind of movie.Time stops. Does not exist anymore. Minutes, hours and days are melting together into a „Staying on the Sea”. One feels as if one could live eternally. Nothing else matters. Death looses its importance. A state of peaceful meditation.
I am aware, though, that for many people in the world, the sea has no beauty. Is no symbol of freedom, has brought only death. Is the border, that imprisons them in hopless misery.
The Sea is where we all come from. Nature that sourrounds us. The coastline is where the sea embraces the land. Sometimes peacefully, and sometimes violent and destroying, full of rage and power. And the next day peaceful again.