Burghard Müller-Dannhausen

The use of parallel color stripes, begun the previous year, is further explored. Color pairs and color combinations alternate in a striped structure. To do this, two very different structures are set against one another. The caesura do not always run separately in straight lines. In many cases one structure becomes embedded in the other, creating a spacial ambivalence. The embedded structure appears to lie uppermost and is at the same time a window. The differences between the two structures lie not only in their color combinations but also in their subtle course changes.

In addition to easel painting, began the cooperation with poet Brian Johnson in 2009. Extensive correspondence and a common workshop in 2009 create the basis for this cooperation. As a result, so-called “images” are created in answer to the poems from Brian Johnson. While the easel pictures (“paintings”) result from the pulse of reality and a poetic “extract” filtered through memory, the source of inspiration for the “images” lies in the subjective perception of a poem. Opposed to this, Brian Johnson’s poems are inspired by the images. In this way “pairs” (image + poem or poem + image) or „chains“ (image + poem + image + poem etc. etc.) are created. These poems are never comments on the pictures and the pictures are never illustrations for the poems, rather they exist for themselves. Only the triggering inspiration connects one work to the other. In contrast to the easel paintings, the “images” from this cooperation are not unique but conceived from the outset for publication.

Artistic creations tied to a location are a further area of activity. A work made for the WBoston Hotel in Boston in 2008 was followed by an installation in the lobby of the law firm Luther in Cologne in 2009. The identity of a place, its nature and its function, and the situation of the people who frequent the place, establish the conditions for an artistic invitation to perceive, which activates a feeling of “being here” in relation to the place and a feeling of “being together” in relation to the people.