#22 – Die Wellenreiter

Riding the waves

Letting go, being light, playful, joyful in the chaos… these are some of the feelings and impressions that come up for me when I dive into this painting.

Drip, tilt and watch what happens

The first stage of this painting: fluid paint in layers, dripped over the canvas, in the spirit of Jackson Pollock, water sprayed on top for the colours to mix in a weird, beautiful way. Tilting the canvas set on the floor to allow the colours to meet, blend or clash with each other, influencing their paths using chopsticks to create swirls which ended up giving its underlying texture to the finished painting.

I particularly enjoyed adding red and yellow to the blue and green background colours, and a very strong, almost black, prussian blue, layered quite thickly, and yet more bright yellow on top, making little peaks on the surface of the painting, that can be felt when touching it. Also visible in the photo below.

The waves and their riders

The second stage: happy to see the result the next morning. Having let the soaking canvas rest flat on the floor overnight, I set the canvas on the wall of my atelier and the whooshing energy of a wave let itself be felt on the canvas where the blue and green hues suddenly brought me to my beloved Atlantic Ocean.

I picked up a stencil, originally part of a larger floral stencil set, to get the basic shape of the waves and the wave rider. That little dangling figure, originally an elf (!) in the floral stencil pattern, turned into the first “wave rider” or “Wellenreiter” (the German title of this painting). That little guy did not want to be on its own, so I ended up turning the painting a couple more times to get three of them on the canvas, riding their respective wave.

It was so much fun, adding these little figures suspended in a surreal way to these immobile waves.

Proud moments

“Maman, I want to have this painting in my bedroom” said my very determined 5-year old daughter at the time, contemplating the finished piece… the first time that she so clearly asked to get one of my paintings hung on the wall of her room. Proud moment number 1.

A few months and a good dozen paintings later, more requests by my daughter for a room with limited wall space, plus a move to a new office building, and the “Wellenreiter” ended up moving alongside half a dozen other paintings to the new office, chosen by my colleagues to brighten up their respective offices. Proud moment number 2.

Carefree, happy, wave riders. I used to dive in to join them for a quick moment, each time I passed the glass wall of the office next door to mine…

Update: Last but not least

In December 2015, I discovered that Galeríeka, a beautiful gallery and art café not far from my atelier, was showing work by contemporary Hamburg artists. So it took me a bit of courage, but I decided to bring to Yoanna, the owner of Galeríeka, the catalogue of my first 50 paintings. And Yoanna expressed her interest in presenting my work in the gallery! She pre-selected 21 pieces for the show including this one. Yes! Proud moment number 3.

A few months later and Die Wellenreiter became a center piece on the flyer of my exhibition alongside 10 other paintings as part of the Ausstellung XIII of Galeríeka, a 3-month exhibition from 1 May to 31 July 2017. Proud moment number 4 (you can find the PDF of the flyer of the exhibition in this post and you can read more about the vernissage in this one)

I am also delighted to say that this painting found its owner in the very first week of the exhibition through my artist Facebook page and more potential buyers for it throughout the exhibition itself (more proud moments!!).

Fast forward to October 2017: Die Wellenreiter has now settled in its new home and I am so happy that it found such a good house with a delightful family 🙂 And it’s been joined by my other painting #25 – Guérison, a perfect combination in my totally unbiased opinion 😉

Die Wellenreiter.

*** Original sold *** Available as limited edition print ***