Kia ora tatou
I am born in Germany, I love Italy, I live and love Aotearoa/New Zealand and I am touched by the spirit of the Maori world.
FRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSER 2020 - PORTRAIT - 1100X1290MM EGG-TEMPERA AND OIL, SILVER AND GOLD-LEAF ON CANVAS
Friedensreich Hundertwasser 2020 - Portrait - 1100x1290mm, egg tempera and oil, silver and gold leaf on canvas
I am fortunate to have many precious memories of a very special and close friendship with artist, environmentalist, ecologist, architect and philosopher Friedensreich Hundertwasser.
His death in 2000 has robbed me of my closest spirit companion with whom I was able to share so much what was close to our hearts.
I tried to portray Friedensreich how I remember him in this painting, his humbleness, his devotion to beauty, his fascination for the miracles and mysteries of the natural, but also the pressure and control he was exposed to in his daily life as a renowned artist.
He loved watching the night sky with it's countless stars, shrouded in mystery and was mystified by the unsolved riddles of our human history and old cultures. He felt and lived a closeness to nature most of us can merely comprehend. It seemed he was going through life without barriers to dreams, a kind of solitary journey, meditating beyond the profane realities and necessities of daily life. It gave him the ability to paint the world the way he did, colorful with an childlike innocence.
As an activist and insistent admonisher on environmental matters, he constantly reminded us to find ways to live close to the power of nature and warned of the dangers of self destruction of the human race through its unsustainable modern way of life.
But his own life was also overshadowed by sadness and anguish. The 'successful Hundertwasser industry' he represented, did not come without a heavy price. He was expected to keep producing art and architecture right to his death. “ I would much rather sit under one of the trees I have planted, being part of nature, than keep on doing what is expected from me”.
Hundertwasser was intrigued by the Phaistos disk, I included as a metaphor. Like the Venus of Willendorf, the secrets of past cultures are just some examples of his ever curious mind.
The bird above his shoulders is a New Zealand Tui, it stands for Hundertwasser's love and deep relationship to this country and is a symbol for his desire to be in harmony with nature. He found peace and privacy on his land in the North of the North Island near Kawakawa where he lies buried under one of his beloved trees.
