THE NIGHTBIRD

The story „Der Nachtvogel“ (The Nightbird) by Ursula Wölfel, tells of a little boy who is afraid of the darkness in the night and manifests this fear in the form of a lurking bird sitting in front of the window. The boy overcomes this fear by throwing a vase through the window. The Nightbird will then be gone forever. I found another way to conquer the fears in your life; paint them brightly and colourful and they are less scary. This less scary nightbird can be seen in my painting. He stands for all the fears in life. Fears lose terror when viewed in a more colourful and brighter light, so you can live with them. In contrast to many of my works, I proceeded in a more planned and structured manner: I knew from the beginning that I wanted to paint the Nightbird. I had also determined the background and colour choice beforehand. As always, the work itself was purely intuitive. The background of the picture is kept dark so that the colours used for the actual Nightbird, especially the variants of the neon colours, come into their own. A middle distance is apparently completely missing in this picture, behind the night bird the dark night sky seems to begin.  A depth effect is only achieved in the picture by superimposing the numerous contrasting colours and shapes and by working out the many details. The lower part of the Nightbird appears frayed or torn.  The shapes appear flowing. The red that seems to flow down the left shoulder may be reminiscent of blood, the yellow traces of flow possibly of pus and on the left half of the body snakes seem to wind their way up the body.  Under the flowing blood and the snakes, the body seems to be transparent and reveals the flesh, bone structures and internal organs, where roughly the heart should be, a round shape looks like a target. If you look at the beak of the "bird", it is reminiscent of cell structures.  The meat or muscle tissue just mentioned winds its way up the bird's neck into the head, where it is in turn interspersed with white, round surfaces that are reminiscent of broken bones.  Overall, the structures and shapes of the head seem to strive outwards, as feathers would on a bird. The right side of the head appears rather fragile and almost transparent and as if hidden behind a veil.  As a result, the viewer also recognizes bone structures and possibly internal organs. A kind of horn structure runs out towards the left corner of the picture. The other side of the head seems to be the exact opposite: A kind of armor prevents the view inside and instead of exclusively outward-striving forms there are again flowing yellow traces running downwards, which could be reminiscent of pus. Despite these many morbid pictorial elements just mentioned, the nightbird does not appear to be terrifying or frightening. On the contrary: He seems to be looking at the viewer with friendly eyes. By using bright colours for the morbid picture elements just described, the picture appears bright and cheerful overall. A certain harmony is also achieved through the composition and arrangement of shapes and through the use of the same colour variants. All of this makes clear the intention presented at the beginning of the process of creating the picture: a representation of fear, which is less frightening by painting in bright colours. A white tulip on a black background was also deliberately added to this picture at the end. It is a symbol of endless love and stands for the connection to my father, who was also an artist.