Psycho 1. Berlin
2021. 80x110cm. Oil on canvas. Finding my cloud of paradise or slipping into the abyss of the underground is a 50/50 proposition in this city. I was walking a fine line between developing myself as a person and the urgency to let Schweinehund off the leash. My Martins wandered through the city, descending into the subway. They sidestepped the junk of unnecessary things under painted graffiti, the shabby walls with a green mold of a city with perpetual construction in the swamp, reminded once again by endless pink pipes. Pipes stood alongside people on the brink of social bottom and the ones unfortunate to deal with mental disabilities. My hair absorbed the omnipresent smell of grass coupled with the obnoxious aromas of baked goods and annoying currywurst. The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was to rinse it all off and dive into the comfort of a terrycloth towel. I thumbed through many books to heal my mind during the chilling, hopeless winter. Like the characters in Franz Kafka's The Transfiguration, I have been constricted by circumstances, commitments, and far-fetched aspirations. All I have to do is shovel out all this junk and let the cocoon open, and roses bloom, nourishing them with dreams and turning intentions into actions. No powder will ease the pain of irrepressible aspirations like the witch's potion did not help Faust. I am switching on the lamp in the room of my mind. The bugs cannot be eradicated, but they spread out to corners under a bright light. And there is the risk of being wounded by the thorns of the rose as a symbol of knowledge. While awake, the mind holds sway over the inner demon.