Isle of Mainau under the influence of Szczesny's Iron Sculptures

The Isle of Mainau is about 40 km close from where I live. It is the place to shift down the gear and get to enjoy a beautiful layout of flowers and trees on a little island. The tulip season is a great one start to with. About a million tulip bulbs are being planted and surprise your eyes in spring time every year: there is a huge ribbon of tulips at the upper part of the island.

The installation of the sculptures from Stefan Szczesny took place in the year 2007. Huge iron sculptures - as for example the woman with the pineapple or the bird - had been installed on the island among flowers and trees during summer. Szczesny's installation and paintings remind not few of Henri Matisse. His iron works reflected upon the beauty and transformed the island into an artwork of its own. Myself I got so excited by the change the sculptures added to the little isle that I drove there every day. The energy flow was incredible and it was up for an entire week. For that week I came back home every day with a painting.

I did the paintings in pastels. This is challenging while traveling and when you work in the field handling the sensitive structure of pastels. Moreover when it is warm outside and you like to avoid a direct placement of them to the sun and therefore fragmentation. I took these challenges as an opportunity, looking a bit like a kid in the playground with pastel colors placed all over my clothes. The results of the efforts you see here. Each painting has been immediately kept behind the glass. They are solely offered framed to protect the pigments and the motif.

Last year I received the note of of a business partner from Austria that she is interested in the Longing I painting. Well packaged and wrapped I put a lot of dedication to make the pastel and its frame safe to ship: the great artwork enjoys now the office and its team in Vienna.