“The smoke of war is blue, white the bones of men”

Du Fu 杜甫(712 - 770)

I’m writing this a few months after the massive floods in Germany, and after witnessing scenes from the floods in China among other places. In my series of paintings "Die Flut (The Flood), 2021" I am  trying to measure the coexistence of time with the surroundings in the state of flood, throughout three different phases; before the flood, during the flood and the aftermath.

I already worked on more than one piece at the same time to allow for fluidity and to keep the momentum of the painted object/story vivid. This initial or transitional phase of fluidity is the main source of my paint methods which always derive from the elusive and unconscious space of dreams and get contextualized through the process of painting. The substantial connection between dreams and water was a constant interest and area of research, especially in my previous works such as “The Rainy Days Series” and “About the Cloudy Days Series” -or even in my film research “La morte e la fanciulla”. That’s why I am exploring the narratives that the flood brings with it; these kinds of floods which happen naturally -or even artificially for political purposes. Through merging the geographical places that I had in my dreams with a conscious narration that draws on such temporalities, the work entangles both the personal and the collective and speculates on the flood as a tool for repression, resistance or even political discourse.

The images of destruction brought to my mind memories of wars I had witnessed. Looking at the massive water waves sweeping away everything and that process of replacement eloquently tells us about how exile and migration might look like. As our bodies tell our surviving stories, our scars indicate our naughty childhood memories, our weather predicts the geopolitical mapping of our future but before that it's alarming us about our present day positions.