I have painted since I was able to speak and take my first own steps. I was married and have one son, Maximilian, who is 11 years old.
After school I worked writing books, in graphics, in advertising and in marketing for different companies and afterwards I worked in my own advertising agency. While I was working for a lot of great companies, I was able to learn more about colours and I got to work in other techniques, like for instance airbrush, and also I also worked with lots of different materials.
I have made a lot of ordered works never thinking about my own style.
In 2000 I became very ill. So I had to stop all my working activities. I spent a lot of time thinking about my life and my way of living. After the first diagnose, what physicians call cancer, I was shocked. They told that my time left to live would be very short. I have now lived longer then the physicians have predicted. I established my own way of living in deep natural love and peace, in painting, in being a human and in respecting life itself. The reason for changing my life was very hard, but I got a chance to love and hope, pray and believe. In a short time I received more than I ever could have been given in previous years. Creating is healing. I found my own way in creating art. Shown to me by something I called my “angels” who accompany me.
Previously I was working with the material, but now the material and I work together. I touch the colours, touch the material, and during this process I get the idea what to do with it. Sometimes I get an inspiration to create and I convert it directly. Sometimes I create a piece of art in 3 hours, sometimes it takes many weeks to finish it. Sometimes the material tells me what to do, and sometimes I see the next part of my work in the material. I like to work with natural materials and natural colours. Sometimes I take everything I can get my hands on to create my art, also the colours. Bubble bath, spices, ash from a cigarette and so on. Sometimes I don’t need brushes and other tools to create my art - only my hands and my thoughts. The touching touches my soul.
But recently there has been another aspect in painting pictures: I dreamt about it. Especially in my space-arts I was inspired in dreams. I saw the pictures and had to paint them directly in the middle of the night. I was very surprised to see a lot of similarities in my art and the pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope.
In my thoughts, the global viewing and global thinking becomes a new dimension. I like to show this in my art, because they tell a story written in the past, they write the present and will be writing the future.
Birgit Sennewald
Berlin, in November 2004
This Space Artist is only available in electronic form.
Credit:
NASA & ESA
