THE
INTERVIEW
Interview © Gerd
Marstedt
What led you to start
painting, how long have you been
painting?
I've been painting as long as I can remember!
This is my CALLING and it always was.
Painting is and always has been the means by
which I express my feelings.
Sometimes it is also a means ofrebellion against
convention -- a provocation even -- but not in a
negative sense.
Rather, I seek to incite stimulating discussions,
as well as encourage tolerance.
I get the ideas for my pictures from continuous
feedback from other people as well as from my
curiosity,which leads me to look beyond facades.
Do you have something
like artistic role models and
predilections?
Many, many ... how could it be otherwise? I am a
deep admirer of Picasso, love Dali and especially
Klimt, and am fascinated by Warhol, Giger,
Sorajama and Vallejo.
Every school of Pop Art inspires me.
My relationship to abstract painting is
ambivalent.
There are a number of works in this area that
appeal to me, but usually due to a particular
coloring and composition.
So long as it's not about "suspending forms
and colors", I can happily take an interest
in it.
Does art fill most of
your leisure time as well?
Art and music are the most important things I do.
I go to exhibitions, galleries and museums every
chance I get.
I couldn't imagine living without art -- really
believe I would waste away.
I alsohear a great deal of music and paint every
spare minute, enjoy talking to interesting people
and have a lot of fun with my computer and with
all the possibilities of the internet.
The Internet: what
significance does it have for you
personally and for your painting?
I set up my web-site, of course, to bring my work
to a wider audience.
The huge -- and prevailingly positive --
resonance pretty much overwhelmed me.
To get feedback from such diverse cultural
environments and countries is a marvelous thing.
It is truly inspiring. When I surf in the
internet, I visit above all art and music sites.
What is your opinion of
the womens' movement?
I myself know what it's like to be labeled
prematurely. Strong women still inspire fear in
men.
Personally, I feel that when teamwork is called
for, the different character traits of the sexes
cancomplement each other wonderfully, ifmore men
would just open up and allow it to happen.
Men are often governed bytheir aggresiveness and
sexuality.
Whereby I myself admire their audacityand
self-confidence -- even if I often wonder if it's
justified.
Each painting is
accompanied by a song. What's this
about?
Nobody can talk to me when I'm painting -- I'm in
another world, alone with myself.
Music has a big influence on my creative process.
For most of my paintings there is a specific song
which massively influenced the work from start to
finish -- though no workis every truly finished
in my eyes.
I hear this song repeatedly while working and
find myself in a kind of timeless space or
trance.
Do emotions alone drive
your painting?
Emotions rule me, without a doubt.
Nevertheless, I usually have a clear picture in
advance of what the end product should be.
When painting, I am influenced by the widest
variety of events that occur during the creative
process.
The colors are always dependent on my mood. And
whereas the basic tendency is clear to me
beforehand, much
changes in the process. Naturally I want to
address the oberver and capture his or her
attention.
The women whom you represent in your paintings
appear
multi-faceted and contradictory. Do you mean to
say that
these many faces exist within each woman?
I am convinced that each woman is multi-faceted
and often contradictory as well.
I do believe that I am in a position to make such
a judgement.
Sometimes strong, and yet weak when she has to
be; energetic, self-confident and indeed
dominating as well.
Nevertheless vulnerable, anxious and shy. To
admit a weakness constitutes for me a strength.
To do so, however, requires openness, something
both men and woman are afraid of.
Yet if you don't open up to others, they won't
open up to you -- it's a Catch-22.
"Erotic art"
is only one of your genres of painting. Do you
use it to try to break a taboo or provoke people?
The erotic aspect which the superficial observer
reads into my work is for me secondary.
I have learned the hard way that although we live
in the 20th century, many observers still have a
problem with the portrayal of veritably naked
truths.
That's something I don't always understand. In
such situations I just assume that the observer
didn't grasp the meaning of the work.
Do you see a clear
dividing line between pornographic
and non-pornographic art, in terms of sexual
motifs?
Actually, I don't have any taboos in this area:
erotic painting is plainand simply my main field
of work.
The portrayal of the sheer, demystified sex act,
however, wouldn't interest me enough and, in my
opinion, has little to do with eroticism.
Still, I can contemplate painting just about
anything that has to do with this subject matter.
Yet I would execute it in a more differentiated
way, with a dose of magic, mysticism and
tenderness.
In any case, the border between pornography and
eroticism is a precarious tightrope walk.
© Gerd
Marstedt
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