Let there be light!

Since a few years each October you'll find thousands of people on the street when it's dark in Berlin.

It's the festival of light and goes three days but actually starts a week before with the weekend of lights. So artist and other people use the open space, or streets and buildings to put light on them and then to change over to put projections instead. 

Many famous buildings are the victims but also bridges and unknown houses get lifted from a colorful ray of light. 

This weekend since friday, you'll see moving pictures on the wall, or changing images. 

It has not only become very popular to take a walk through dark Berlin in autumn until the morning drops. It also has become much better now. 

The pictures you are going to see are more amazing now and even surprising. Of course most buildings who got a shine on are at -Potsdamer Platz-  or -Brandenburger Tor- and on the street -Unter den Linden-. These are the main places, if you like it to call them. Even the famous -Ku'damm- is with. And many more and so you have to decide which route to take. Tourist shops and information places and hotels will help you for sure to find out what you want or is best for you as you also can be on a boat tour. 

So if you are in Berlin do that walk and discover! But be aware it is cold and even when you can buy the first "Klühwein" you are going to feel cold if you have no scarf and other cloths to keep you warm as you have to wait on some places to watch all the images. 

This year I did a 2,5 hour tour and it is much colder as last year, otherwise I sure would have stayed longer. But maybe you are stronger. Just know until tomorrow midnight you are able to enjoy this event and next chance is not before next year October. 

Still not sure? Well, look at the pics I made... they may give a little idea and feeling to you.

Love & Light

near Potsdamer Ptlatz

a game of cards and a hotel in fruit

Brandenburer Tor

our wonderful Staatsoper- colors like music

August Bebel Platz where the "Progrom night" took place 1933 and the burning books have been

even chines art is to see

our Univeristy- Humbold Universität

the University and Humbold himself in front of it or better an image of him

on the corner of the Deutsches Historisches Museum near the Museumsinsel

Deutscher Dom and even my mobile was able to make a good pic as Love is all we need

The new soap opera

Sometimes luck is on your side and you are going to see a show you never thought you would, even known everywhere in town you'll find the pictures of the "Seifen Oper" - the soap opera. The original once took place and was shown in the -Chamäleon Teather- in Berlin. Now this little experience became bigger and went on to visit another towns and now it is back in Berlin in the well known Varité -Wintergarten-. 

The story is easy to tell and starts with the owner of a house and his which to get the house just for himself, which means- all people living there have to get out and so he tries to find a way to find a reason. His daughter is therefore to become part of the tenant. Then she finds out much more then she ever thought and first being on her fathers side, she will change and so on the story goes.... 

Of course you'll meet the different tenants and what they do, how they live and love and here we have the special thing. This show is a mix of several different artistic styles. All play with a life band and everybody sings his heart out, thought only two are real singer, while the rest have learned it well. Why? They are ballet dancers who learned also to be a circus performer or singers who became dancers and wire artist. Yes, the performers have learned more then just one thing and all play very well together and the story is going on just like in a second. The body work is amazing and after all, they put a lot of funny moments and jokes into and in between and if this was not enough, they have a very good opera singer who keeps them all together with the music band. The talking in the play is part english, part german and there is also a rat and so this show is not only entertaining and has smashing effects, it also showed me the future of artistic work and how they all can work together and learn from each other. 

Sadly (on one hand) it also means that those young people have to learn much more and the expectation is getting higher from the audience. I had a lot of joy (on the other hand) to see this imaginative mix and  I think Markus Pabst and Maximilian Rambaek did a great job as directors and Jack Woodhead made wonderful music. 

So if you like a dancing splish, splash and funny artistes, water in tubes and hot bodies, if you like to hear opera with rock guitars and to see some love triangle on stage, then this is the right show now! 

Till 27. September it will take place and entertain you and by the way, it is risky for the artists to do their job as just on the show I saw just before the first part was over one of the singer got her head hit and had to take away to the hospital. 

So enjoy and like always lots of Love and Light.... 

Now the pics ;-) 

Jan Bo Vinter Poulsen- an Interview

Hey Folks, here is another interview I made with a great artist, a painter whom I was lucky to meet and talk to. I hope you'll have fun reading it and look at his work! He is very god and a very amazing person.  

Jan Bo, you are a painter and an architect and are coming from Danmark but now you are living in London.
If I remember right since four years and since that time you are also working mostly as a painter. Is that right?

Yes, since 2011 I have been drawing and painting in London. I have slowly been transforming myself into a figurative artist, looking at people and making my emotional responses from what I see and feel - sometimes stories built from glimpses into human behaviour and the way fate brings people together, sometimes purely a transcription like a courthouse drawing. It is portraiture and storytelling for me. I do it from an observational perspective, and whether I'm noticed or unnoticed is often reflected in my work.

If I look at your work, I see a different style of technique and you use different ways of making a picture. You do arcrylic paint, but also oil. I also see that you use pins and so I see a mix of painting and drawing. How come? 

In the search to express my observations, exploring different and challenging materials has been essential. Sometimes the use of mixed media has been a way to show the complexity of the scene and capture different layers.

So, with those different techniques you create art and as I could see on Instagram and Pinterest you seem to go through a lot of stages before the last painting of a t.ex. human is finished. You also show those several steps to people- why?

I often find it very difficult to tell when a drawing or painting is finished. I do like to record the progress and I don't mind sharing my journey. Some earlier stages may tell a different story, and as the story progresses, the painting is changing, the drawing is changing, and the figures are somehow clarifying and dissolving at the same time.

You also show your sketches. You have a sketch book if I am right.

The sketchbook has over the years become a guideline - sort of a chronometer or diary. It is with me at most times, and I try to make notations and records of things I see and feel. I love drawing while I'm out - I have made the whole of London my studio. Whether I'm among strangers or friends and family, it is a dialogue - a language for me. I can step away from the conversation and make myself a spectator, but I feel I'm still in dialogue with them via my painting and making such a record of the whole experience.

Well, from what I saw of the sketch book I would call it art and cannot help but wonder if someone, when the book is finished, wants to buy this collection of sketches, as I have the feeling when going through them it is like reading a wonderful book, would it be possible to buy it?

To part with the book seems difficult right now. I would like to one day perhaps publish an edited version of the sketchbook or should I say several sketchbooks. There are some highlights, lowlights and experiments that I'd like to share. But mostly I see it as a tool for my development, and in the future I will be making more paintings from my sketches.

Is it right you paint every day? That would also mean you must have a lot of great sketch books at the end, is that right?

I paint and draw every day. It is essential for my being as an artist to produce and record. Lucian Freud said ...

I had the luck to watch you sketch people and you seem to have a fast eye and a good sense of catching emotions and feelings. Was it always like that or did this become stronger with time?

I would like to think there is constant progress but unfortunately it is not always like that. They are dead ends for me and sometimes I take one step forward and two steps back. I have developed a stronger certainty of my way of working and don’t get very concerned about the opinions of the people around me while I'm painting and drawing. Sometimes there can be quite an encouragement from bystanders to change things or from people who are not happy with their appearance.  

Next question leads us further to the question what or who inspires you as an artist? 
I read you have been many time to the National Gallery in London and studied t.ex. The Immaculate Conception by Diego Velázquez.  

I look to the old masters and I'm hugely inspired by their techniques, their concessions, and their ability to capture difficult and emotional topics. I draw often from other people's art to make it my own, to take it in, and I don't regard my drawings from them as copies but as individual works of art.

You know, the last question is actually about the fact that you paint mostly humans. Different kind of people, like a Punk Dj, naked women and man and also people in a Pub. You seem to like them, but the style is very different in which you paint them. Some portraits reminds us of pictures from Albrecht Dürer and Francisco Goya, because of the dark background. Others more of Van Gogh and other paintings of the way you did paint in 1910 till '40, as you use a lot of colours in them. 
You have mostly a more raw style, but when you paint naked people or others then your way of painting is more soft. Has this a reason or does it just happen to match what you see?

I love people and their diversity. I see people kind of like components in an electrical device in the way that they interact, working together and making life.

I saw you once or twice put out on Pinterest a series of variation of the same man you painted- like we could follow the process but as I saw all those five or seven versions I wonder if you can buy those as a series as you showed on the internet? I talk about the " Getting the man out of the canvas" series t.ex..

Those images are purely process and a way for me to guide me in the paint process. Posting wile the work is unfinished have given me feedback and further inspiration and I think this is one of the things I have learned from using Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Pinterest.

Looking on your pictures, paintings and sketches they seem all like old/ classic but new/modern in the same time, thought you just have started your work as an artist. 
But you started as an architect. Seems the connection to people is also very strong there as I saw your work in the Danish Design Centre at the exhibition "Honey I'm home". There you ask in your work- 2007: "Can a person live in a sandwich?"
Yes, how come an architect goes into painting?
How come that many architects have a near bond to art?

For me, it is all really linked. There are in theory no limits, it is very fluid, and while what I'm doing at the moment is not architecture, I could not have created it without my background.
Last question now.
Where can people see your work now or in the future? Is there any exhibition in planing?
I'm working on getting my first London show and finding a gallery to represent me in the future.

Now I will thank you for giving me the chance to ask you all those questions. For the readers will now follow the links to the sides on Pinterest and Instagram... and of course some of your paintings and work in process to see. Thank you.
https://instagram.com/jbvp8000https://www.tumblr.com/search/Dexx8000

Her are some of his works:

all pictures are made and owned by Jan Bo Vinter Poulsen!

LOVE & LIGHT

Frank Loman- a painter

As a man who loves art and likes to not only see them in museum, I also like to see them in galleries or on art markets, because you can also buy them there if you like. 

I think art is something- which can make you just think after, make you laugh or feeling melancholic, and also has the possibility to enjoy you in many other ways- that is healthy for you and can live up your spirit. Though some art can depress you and that's why you should very carefully think about what you keep home. Some art is just meant to be shown and take people into discussion. Some art is very nice but won't make you happy at home. 

Many people believe you had to have art lesson to understand art. That is not true. First you just have to feel it. Let a picture capture you and make you fly away in your own thoughts. No matter if you are delighted or depressed of it. Art is not about amusing and pleasing everyone. 

A painting sometimes has no other goal then just let you feel god.

A painting sometimes is telling you a story and sometimes it will make you make up your own story.

Now to Frank Loman, a painter I really like and adore and his work is such beauty and extraordinary god. 

He still is growing, he still is doing new ways in his painting and I discover just more beauty and still his paintings look modern and old in the same time, remind you of aborigines and impressionism. 

I think you should absolutely take a look on his paintings and if you like get in contact with him @frank_loman on Twitter, as he lives in London and is open for your interest as every artist is. 

You can buy his work and help him create more art and at the --> https://www.facebook.com/crazycoqsopenmic?fref=photo you can also hear him sing and after the show get in contact with him.

I also once made an interview with him, which you can read here:

http://one-thing-to-remember.blogspot.de/2014/03/frank-loman-interview.html

But now some picture from his paintings and you will be able to see the same as I- he is very good and needs to be known! :-) 

So If you like it- spread this post as much you can... 

LOVE & LIGHT