I would like to meet all visitors in person, but that is impossible. So, I decided to go for an artistic solution that allowed visitors to meet me. Portrait-art is an artistic genre that seemed a good medium to me for this purpose. It gives visitors a first impression of who I am, how I look and how my creativity expresses itself when I am painting. Even before I started this project, I have always made self-portraits. For the entrance pavilion, I used some of my existing work and mixed them with new work. I don’t work with detailed plans but try to let my artworks grow in a way nature let things grow. I make use of the given possibilities. As the works developed, they, unintendedly, formed a unique series. The relationship between the works appeared in hindsight. It has become a painted representation of the course of my life. Everyone starts young and grows old, that is the same for you and me.
When I’m painting a self-portrait, I’m looking in a mirror or at a photo. At first, I try to capture the right physical forms of my face. Simultaneously, something else starts to happen. I also try to express my personality. How did I feel, what activities made my days? Did these daily activities satisfy me? The physical form and the personality melt together. Do not ask me how that works, because I don’t have an answer. Quite special in making this series was that it brought me back in time. The memory of these young Carolinas became so vivid when I was painting them, that I felt as if they were still alive in me, even now I’m older. So, I re-encountered different parts of myself by painting them. The union of these parts forms the series, the whole of my life, the whole that makes up the person I am today.
I can’ t imagine art that has nothing to tell. I am a human, I create from my life-vision that colors all that I do. I love this planet, the nature of the earth, the animals and the humans. While growing older, I become more and more amazed by the enormous diversity among humans and their cultures. Yet, at the same time, I see at least as many biologically determined similarities. What we humans have in common deserves our attention as well. I would wish that the humans of today and tomorrow would become more and more aware of that what connects them and that they would learn to cope with human diversity. In my opinion that diversity is inevitable, interesting and necessary. It allows us to help and inspire each other. I am a dreamer. I dream of a beautiful world on this beautiful earth. When we focus on what connects us, we can realize that dream together.