Illustration for Marion Hartmann's poem Rückzug (Retreat) as part of the SternenBlick anthology, Zwischen den Wolken (Between the Clouds) (Mattner, 2016)

Mixed media. November 2015.


Marion Hartmann's poem Rückzug (Retreat) spoke to me on a very personal level, partly because Marion and I have worked closely together on a number of projects, and we seem to have an intuitive understanding of each other's work. This poem of hers moved me, because it describes how creative writing can help her to escape from the prison of self-doubt and reconnect with the things she loves in the world around her. I relate to this completely, through my visual art practice. The imagination is a path to freedom. The female figure and the dog are themselves cut out of the pages of a book, which could be either a writer's notebook or an artist's sketchbook, both used to compile sketches and jottings. The words “ein Stift mit dem Du schreibst” (“a pen with which you write”) climb out of the book, like a plant growing up towards the light of the prison window.