«Morning in Lichtenbusch»
Acrylic on linen, 100 × 80 cm
2018
This painting is from 2018 and is one of the very first works I created after a long break from painting
At that time I was only beginning to experiment with heavy gel mediums. If you look closely, you’ll notice that I used texture only on the trees and the leaves in the foreground. Back then, I was still discovering what this material could do.
The painting is based on a place I loved deeply. Every morning, while my little son was still asleep, I would wake up at five or six, take my dog for a walk, and watch the sunrise.
Those mornings were magical.
The ground was still dark, while the sky slowly filled with light and color. I loved walking along this little lane, with fields stretching out on both sides, horses grazing quietly, and birds singing all around. It was peaceful in a way that’s hard to describe.
Today, that place looks completely different.
The lane is gone. A new road has been built, along with a new school where my children will start this September. Most of the fields have disappeared, and only a small area remains for the horses. The village has grown, new streets have appeared, traffic has become much busier, and the quiet atmosphere that inspired this painting has faded away.
When I painted this, Lichtenbusch had only around forty houses and just a few families with children. It truly felt like a small countryside village.
I’m grateful I painted these mornings. Sometimes a painting becomes more than a landscape, it becomes a memory of a place that no longer exists.
