from sandbox to television
My inspiration is drwan from my art studies at the HGB Leipzig, from the Old Masters and from how the Impressionists captured the light.
Over the past fourteen years, I have worked for thousands of people from all walks of life, creating works that have brought joy, beauty, emotion and strength to their lives.
My approach is very practical and intuitive in equal parts.
My work has been shown on many channels, from local television, in documentaries, theater productions, at international festivals and on small and large stages.
As a sand painter, I skillfully incorporate my spiritual practice into my art, which gives me the freedom and focus with which I enchant my audience.
During my graduation from the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, I realized that I couldn’t and didn’t want to work the way I did before.
I knew that I no longer just wanted to draw beautiful but frozen illustrations.
Just as every moment is unique and has never been before, it will never come again.
Regardless of how we experience or label it, it is so valuable!
I also wanted to see that in my expression as an artist.
My work as an illustrator felt so limited compared to this desire and my experience as human.
I didn’t just want to show beautiful, frozen illustrations, I wanted to invite the viewer to pause for a moment and take them beyond their thought life into the vastness of the moment.
A great goal, isn’t it? My trips to India deepened this desire.
How could that happen? I had to leave the ivory tower of the illustrator and enter the stage of live painting.
The loose material of the desert seemed to me to be exactly the gracious material I was looking for.
After two decades of art lessons, drawing classes and studying nature, I wanted to see this incredible shadow-light technique in a top-class aesthetic. So I had no choice but to invest in it myself.
As an autodidact, I developed the various finger techniques and expanded these with the techniques of Kolam painting from India.
While studying illustration with Prof. Thomas Matthaeus Mueller at the HGB Leipzig, I often worked behind closed doors and only came out when the drawings seemed "finished" or "perfect". Especially towards the end of my studies, I was looking for a more direct way of expressing myself in pictures. Mueller shows me how to achieve great sophistication with great simplicity. The lightness of his illustrations are still an inspiration for my creations in sand. My first public performance was my diploma examination and took place in Leipzig's oldest movie theater.
"Art creates a deep connection between artist and audience."
12,000 spectators saw the sand performance "Hambug's Beauty in Sand" in Hafencity. In a venue that was sold out for over 4 months, many highs and lows of the Hanseatic city from the industrial age to the present day could be experienced anew in a visually powerful and emotional way.
"It sometimes happens that an extraordinary work of art is created in a very ordinary moment."
Sandpainting in this documentary tells the story of what it means to be trapped in your own body and not be seen. The documentary Sandgirl takes us into the unique world of experience and life of Veronika Raila, a young autistic woman, hypersensitive and severely disabled from birth. Her poems are rendered in subtle sand paintings.
"Sand as a metaphor is clear because I am not stable. One little thing is enough and my insides crumble apart." Veronika Raila, co-author of SANDGIRL
Times Literature Festival
Sand art is universally understandable. In India's city of dreams - Mumbai - I told a story about the element of water and its meaning for our lives. Inspired people could participate in a workshop and all this in the magical Mehboob Film Studios with the sand from the Juhu Beach.
Sand painting in the art museum in Kronberg
Film material is not always available for historical events. My flowing sequences of sand paintings bring the history of the Kronberg painters' colony to life in the museum and tell of its origins in front of the originals.
Sand painting as inspiration at the BestPracticeDay
When everyone's heads are spinning and engineers and business people are meeting to discuss the issues of our time, my sand painting brings a completely creative element and an energetic message that is captivating, calming, inspiring and also sensual in every form. It created a meditative mood that lightened and enriched the congress.
