A set of two smaller paintings that helped me, to escape winter in my own little ways, travvelling on the wings of colour. As everything in the past months, they develloped in an intuitive manner, applying many layers of paint to evoke a sense of something hidden and partly veiled.

II’m one of these persons, who can’t help seeing things everywhere they look – like animals in clouds, faces on and old wall, etc. So, even if i intended to create an abstract work here, so much of something came in here, that my husband said. these remind him a lot of Tunis.

I didn’t mind that at alll and kept this association in the title of this pair, since islamic art and architecture, especially from Maroc. has always inspired me a lot. But i do hope, that each viewer feels free to see their own things – or no things, as the vibrations of colour speak for themselves.

This is a whimsical painting that started on an experimental note – improvising with the coloirs like you would on a musical instrument. Never the less, it took a long time for me to find the „tune“, the right balance between chance and conscious choices that i liked. I always get stuck, when too much of the head comes into the painting process, when i try to controll too much. So i needed to step back from the painting times and times again until it was finished. My husband called it „HAPPY HOUR“ – and we had a drink of champagne on it!

Making carpet art is an adventure – and a lengthy process, that involves a lot of work. Many steps and many people. It gave me an understanding, of how important it is, to communicate clearly. To translate the original vision of the design in a way, that will not be misunderstood. When two people look at one thing, they may see and perceive it differently. And even more so, when these people have a different cultural background. It is stunning to see a carpet beong made, seeing skilled hamds tufting it, washing and drying it, cutting it and thus turning it from a 2-D image into a 3D object

“RHAPSODY” an ancient Greek word that means “songs stitched together” holds a spirit of collaboration, freeflow, contrasting moods, colours, and tonality. My friend Sharmeen Attarwala and i chose it as a title for one of our artistic carpet series that was derived from a set of abstract collages we worked on a while earlier.

An air of spontaneous inspiration and a sense of improvisation that felt like making music happened when we created the collages and transfered them into designs on the computer. In a dreamlike mode imagining the sunlight caressing warm stones, the peaceful architecture of quiet towns, light gleaming through windows, golden beiges changing into pink and pink into dusky blues, a trance in the poetic spaces of our minds.

Once made into handtufted carpets by skilled craftsmen in India they looked even more stunning. We love the slight relief structure they have, the soft touch and the silky shine, that makes the colours come alive and change with the light.

The many layers of paint that i used to achieve depth and transparency in the colour, makes the painting change with the light so it looks different thoughout the day.

The Golden Light series was done last winter to spring – in that time, when the light here is mostly pale white and grey and you don’t see much of the sun. It was inspired by shadows, that the morning sun had painted on the canvases. It started out on a much lighter, almost translucent palette in a white light.

But even though they looked quite poetic in the reduced, pale colour scheme, they did not evoke that feeling of happiness, that i craved at that time. They made me slightly shiver. Then, the Forsythia in the garden and in the landscape around me started bloomimg early and brought in a very bright, yellow sound that was heard all around. Hello, can you hear a colour? Yes, to me colours are like sounds ofteh.

And before i knew it, the yellow swept into my paintings and the inner smile came back…

Inspired by the compositions of beautiful marine plants and creatures, the unique Flow carpet collection captures the alluring mystery of the ocean in its bold vibrant compositions. Each rug is hand-tufted with an array of soft, durable wool and Tencel fibres that mimic the undulating patterns of the ocean’s surface and magnificent life hidden deep below.

Find more information on these artistic carpets here.

It is a fascinating process, to turn a design into a carpet. I was hugely inspired by the rich, natural colour palette of the wool and Tencel yarns. Yet at first it is hard to imagine, how the shades of these will turn out on a large scale. How the colours blend and mix when woven. And how the translation works. As we found out, it is a matter of trust and above all, a clear and effective communication between us, the artists and designers, and the craftsmen and-women.

When two people look at one image, they might still not see and perceive the same thing. And it took some lengthy and costly trial and error to find out, how we could bring our vision across.

Once the carpet is knotted or tufted, the work is not yet over. Each piece is washed and dried multiple times and cut and trimmed by hand, to achieve the delicate relief structure. that enhances the design and also the touch of the carpet.

An zwei Tagen öffnete sich unsere Atelierwohnung zu einer Feier der Kontraste. Schwarz, weiß und das ganze Farbspekrtum dazwischen können nicht nur friedlich koexistieren, sondern ergänzen sich aufs Beste. Was wäre das Leben ohne Gegensätze?

If you know me, you know, how much I like to use circles and dots in my paintings. So painting grapes felt quite natural for me. Yet grapes on paintings have a tendency to look either oldfashioned or kitschy somehow. And the difficult thing was, to develop a new take, while hanging on to the fascination of my first impressions.

So the first little sketches in colour developed into a whole series, that kept me busy for a whole year of painting. And next to making and drinking wine, painting wineplants and grapes is one thing, that is capable of making people forget their sorrows and dwell in most delicate moments of happiness. Or, I should also hope, looking at paintings, that capture the abundance and the magic that comes from this astonishing plant, that produces so much from almost nothing.

Look at more paintings from this series here.

Chees to you!

Cocoa trees look like a piece of art or like an ancient goddess, generous, and abundant. Their huge fruits, containing the cocoa beans, grow directly from the trunk, full of earthly power and sweetness of nature. Once i saw, how cocoa grows, I understood more of the magic of chocolate – why people want it so much, and why it fills us with satisfaction and happiness.

It is also fascinating, to see the colours of the cocoa fruits, ranging from yellow to green to pink, red, violett, purple and maroon. I have not seen light blue ones so far, but could not resist using the pastel shades in my paintings, as they evoke a sense of delicacy and lightness.