Balcony painting

Balkonien is the title of a series of paintings consisting of 7 pictures, each showing different balconies. They were created after research in Berlin and Brandenburg and evaluation of the photographic material in 2021 during the pandemic.

As a place of retreat with a connection to the outside world, a balcony is a place of silence where the desire to be alone can be lived out. However, you can hear the noise from the street to a greater or lesser extent, as well as other noises, even conversations from neighboring apartments or the chirping of birds. Nevertheless, you can block these out and indulge in the illusion of silence.

A balcony is also a place where you can concentrate unnoticed on individual noises or sounds. You hear music and make music yourself, the weather also produces sounds etc. These sounds mix with other sounds and you are often busy trying to distinguish them or ignore them completely.

When painting the pictures, I was particularly interested in the different designs of the balconies. Depending on the motif, they evoke different sound associations. I was not interested in an exact photographic reproduction of reality, but in a painterly interpretation of the motif with recognizable details. I wanted the medium of painting to come into its own.

This series is not only a continuation of my preoccupation with architecture, but also a sociological study of people in my environment.