“The steady rise of white nationalism in the US was invigorated during the first years of the Obama administration (only to become a permanent fixture during Trump’s reign). In European and eastern European countries like Germany, France, Poland and Hungary the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ led to a strengthening and unprecedented visibility of far-right groups. In addition to documenting people in different situations via film, I have been working on a range of figurative paintings for a decade and a half now. These paintings feature individuals I encountered, locations I visited and news stories I read.
BORDERLANDS started out as isolated paintings of contemporary events. At first, these paintings were reactions rather than carefully considered responses. Over the past two decades, this set of paintings has become a visual document of the many histories that evolved and at times intersected with each other. Many of them are based on personal accounts, my own family history, and interactions with specific individuals while others are representations of underreported events.”
