MULTIMEDIA

ERFOLG

Paper cut-outs, spray paint, acrylic paint, tape on canvas
240 × 120 cm, 2021/2025

In ERFOLG ("success"), central aspects of my artistic practice converge: the reuse, displacement and re-reading of ornamental forms originally derived from historical ornamental template books. These template books have been a constant point of reference in my work for many years – functioning as an archive, a formal memory, and a tool for questioning culturally embedded notions of order, beauty and value.
The work is based on precise paper cut-outs developed directly from these ornamental sources. Through the act of cutting, the motifs are detached from their original context and become physically tangible elements that can be recomposed, layered and reconfigured. Spray paint and acrylic paint create a tension between control and chance, between clearly defined form and diffuse, atmospheric fields. The deliberately visible use of tape emphasizes the provisional nature of the composition – nothing is final, everything remains potentially movable.
The title ERFOLG is deliberately ambivalent. Rather than referring to a linear goal or measurable achievement, it points to a culturally charged promise that is constantly shifting. Ornaments, historically associated with wealth, power or representation, are fragmented, overlapped and reassembled. Success appears not as a stable condition, but as a fragile construction shaped by repetition, rupture and appropriation.
The work consciously operates between decoration and critique. What may initially appear playful or ornamental reveals deeper questions about value, visibility and cultural conditioning. ERFOLG is part of an ongoing investigation into how historical visual systems continue to operate in the present – and how they can be renegotiated through contemporary artistic processes.