May Part III: Exhibitions "Still lives" and "Sommerimpressionen"

With great pleasure I participated in two exhibitions held in my home country: "Still lives" (19th April - 30th Mai 2012) and "Sommerimpressionen" (22nd May - 30th June 2012). Both shows were organized by the Salve-Art Gallery in Leipzig.

The paintings I was invited to show were "First Spring", "Chit-chat'n", and "Summer Breakfast":

Here the two paintings who titled the shows: "Bloody Mary II" by Jura Bedic and "Birthday Party" by Alexandr Mukhodemeev-Boyarov

It was an honor to me to be included in a still-life show together with Jura Bedic, who has taught me so much on this subject when I was a student. Amongst the artists participating were also my dear friends and colleagues Elisabeth Andersson, Melissa Franklin-Sanchez, Sofia Alethe Romarck, Froydis Aarseth and Tasha Walle.

Leipzig is well-known as one of the cities in Germany, that is very beautiful and rich in culture and history. Richard Wagner, Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy have spent part of their life here and have influenced the city's importance in music significantly. The Opera and the "Gewandhaus" are famous. Also many philosophers as for example Friedrich Nietzsche or poets and writers as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have lived here. Wonderful location!

May Part II: Bye-Bye old studio

A lot of things where happening throughout May, including moving my studio. I have been working for the past 2 years at the Artspace studios here in Florence, which now unfortunately have closed their doors. Good news is that the place will be most likely turned into a very similar working environment.

Here some impressions on how my studio looked like:

My favorite corner to relax, with my big shelf full of still life objects, books on art and a lot of inspiration surrounded by some of my paintings. On top a sculpture by my friend Eran Webber that he gave to me very generously

The corner where I would usually set up my models and how it would look like after a 4 hour session. This is by the way one of the paintings I am currently working on though I have finished working with the model. I like using friends or people I know as models because I feel it gives more depth to the painting so in this case my florentine friend Margherita dedicated her time to me:

Opposite to my model corner I had set up for still lives, even in this picture you can see the flow of light falling in from the skylight

The last painting I did in my old studio. I finished just a few days before the inside walls, that had subdivided the space into individual working spaces, were taken down.

So a big bye-bye to my "second home" and a big thank you to my friends Ramiro Sanchez, Melissa Sanchez, Hunter Eddy and Evelyn McFarlane for having me in their community of painters, sculptors, photographers and restorers!