The Angels Factory

What themes does your work involve?

Morality, Erotica, Religion, Zeitgeist.

Describe your creative process.

At first of course it is an idea, a thought or a picture in my mind. Sometimes vague, sometimes very specific. Then I make sketches or look for background visual material, or both. Then if it is a picture I at first draw my grids, which are a stylistic element of my mixed media work at this point in time, and start with my multilayered colour schemes. Then it is a long and sometimes tedious process, until all surfaces have the feel that I need. The work is finished when I get the feeling, that it would not make any difference, if I work further on it, when the sentiment of "I am not through with this" goes away.

What influences your work? What inspires you? Why do you make art?

Anything that touches me in the modern world. Precise positioning versus ambiguity, asceticism versus sensuality, Faith versus Consumerism / atheism. Art is for me a perpetual dialogue between our Self and the surrounding Reality (which nowadays takes many sometimes confusing or frightening shapes). Finally, my creative output refuses to submit stylistically to any narrowly bound art categories or currents.

What are your goals and plans as an artist in 2023?

Trying to paint as many of the new ideas / works in my head as I can.

How do recent advancements in technology affect your art practice? How may recent developments in Artificial Intelligence (image generator software) affect the definition of fine art?

Useful technical tools which make us more productive and less skillful. AI is no match for anything a human can at his best. For me, true art can only be generated by humans, I find the AI hype quite disingenuous.

What is the role of the artist today?

A mirror of society in an era of general decline.

What is good art? What makes a piece of art great?

Excellence in craftsmanship, coherent idea or message, critical view of the world, moral unambiguity, human dimension and an urge to make the world a better place.