CAMPBELL QUEEN

The mixture in my paintings of different techniques and motifs is what's attractive about my work and the theme I play with! The works are like a collage. It's as if someone had collected all sorts of images, motifs, engravings, drawings, and so on and then arranged them on a canvas to make a painting. My compositions are like a game, a game of contrasts and artistic expressions. But above all, it's a game with themes: current events, criticism, worship, or simply moments in my life. There's a motif painted in oil in minute detail (a poppy in flower, for example) next to a cult figure in PopArt style. The crushed can of 'RedBull', painted as if it had been photographed, just found in the middle of a meadow, has landed next to a sketch of a nude. I have mastered many artistic techniques and expressions and I like to combine and arrange them in unusual ways. In this way, I try to give the viewer an up-to-date image of our times, a time full of contrasts and conflicts. Our world, our lives, are so different and so full of contrasts that they too resemble a motley collage. War, mass production, climate change, luxury, decadence and so much more all clash with each other, and we are in the middle of it all, trying to create order. Themes and images from different eras and using different techniques are mixed together. I try to bring these contrasts and themes together in a harmonious composition to express the hope of a stable and peaceful world. There is always a small symbol that refers to my hope for a peaceful outcome in our existence. I don't like immobility, in life as in my work of Art, I'm constantly creating changes, a change in my techniques I equate with a change in time. Small "disturbances" in the representation of a motif or a detail are therefore also part of this and reflect the present. The final image - reflects a world and my thinking: "Yes, this is how it should be, everything has its place and function. I wouldn't want a detail to be missing from the picture, because it's part of the greater whole, the unity that works!" Birgit Lorenz