... presuppose movement and openness. Traveling means movement, encounters, encompasses curiosity and discovery and a sense of wonder at foreign things.

Thailand has often inspired my painting: the rich Buddhist culture, the encounters with very diverse people, the blazing light, colors, shapes and smell of the tropics; all the senses are stimulated in an intense experience. This is hard to describe in words, often sounding trivial, banal. When everyday language fails, artistic forms of expression can take over.

In my pictures I seek the character, the essence of a real moment which I discover in a world shaped by human beings. It is important not to depict what is seen on a superficial level, but rather to arrive at a calm, clear, almost meditative solution through abstraction, simplification and reduction of form. I developed this painterly vocabulary long before I came to Thailand and began to explore Buddhism and meditation.

Coming closer to foreign things makes perceptions shift: in time the astonishment, the confusions and excitement are gone.

The foreign becomes familiar, while the familiar is called into question. This was the origin of the exhibition project coming closer. It is an attempt at an encounter between people from two different cultures through artistic means, with the aim of overcoming mental borders and culturally determined thought structures in order to discover what is foreign in us and what is familiar in others.