NeoName: Sara

2008, ink on paper

Dedicated to one of my best friends

NeoNames

"What's in a name?" – William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)

A name can be a symbol for one’s identity. Most names have meanings and provoke certain associations and frequently even cause prejudice. The association of a name with events, places and cultures varies greatly from individual to individual. Names tell tales, and yet, they are not important, because they can’t tell you anything about their bearer for sure. (An exception are true names of course - if you are able to read them.) Could an individual symbol make a better name? A name for the moment and memory, at least…

I create symbols, some similar, others very different – but each of them is unique. My art captures a moment - an image of a person, a description of a person, a picture, a name, a nickname, a place, an event, an idea, a conversation, an emotion – you name it. These images are anything but a general symbol for something. I’m not just a mirror showing the same scene from another angle, I’m the river on which the leaf of that moment falls. I carry my own interpretation away, into a public room, where it may become something else entirely when this leaf falls onto the river of another individual’s imagination.