Interview with the magazin Mainzeit "Art is not the bread, but the wine of life," said the German writer Jean Paul.
Christine Dumbsky: It's my home! I'm a country person and I need this quiet environment, because that's quality of life for me. I couldn't do anything with the hustle and bustle in the big cities or work there like I can do here.
Atelier: Webparadise FineART & BodyART |
Since I may possibly be more able to paint than to write,
you may read the following words with the kind permission of
Gerd Marstedt
(Kultur-Online).
Erotic Art:
Born in prudishness |
It is surely no coincidence
that two of the most renowned artists andpainters of erotic, Egon Schiele
and Gustav Klimt, grew up at the end of the last century in the prudish
atmosphere of the Austrian captial, Vienna.
Out of this climate of repression sprang Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory as well, which placed sexuality at the center of human conflict. Today, on the eve of the 21st century, erotic art remains the dirty stepchild of nearly all genres of the graphic arts bar the comic. |
Eroticism
in the Internet |
Are internet surfers unusually
voyeuristic, sexually curious, erotomanic? "Porno" and "hardcore"
are the terms most often searched for by internet users.
"Adult sites" are visited by thousands of persons each day, whereas art sites are fortunate to be visited by this many people in the course of an entire year. And sexism in the internet is a constant topic of media debate. To present erotic art under these circumstances is surely controversial, and can quicklywin applause from the wrong corners -- i.e. from those seeking sexual sensation rather than erotic fascination. |
Women:
Neither whores nor saints |
Erotic art is only one of Christine
Dumbsky's genres of painting.
Perhaps this distinction is a false one,betraying more about our --still -- prudish culture, which labels all art in which nakedness appears as 'erotic', than about Christine's motives. You will search in vain for portrayals of crude sex acts in her art work. Indeed, Christine ascribes eroticism a subordinate role in her painting. Visitors of our special exhibition will no doubt also get the impression that 'the female' and not 'emale erotic'forms the leitmotiv of her painting. The women in her paintings are complex and contradictory: self-confident yet shy, anxious yet vivacious, self-sacrificing yet dominating, and passionate though detached. It is a rebuff to the cliché: Women are neither whores nor saints, neither heroes nor homebodies. |
Painting in timeless space
|
Christine is an autodidact. She
uses a special acrylic-dispersion mix technique on wood, in which forms
become plastic and spring out at you, transcending their two-dimensionality.
She often takes her inspiration from music. "I associate most of my paintings with a particular song. I listen to this song repeatedly while working and find myself in a kind of timeless space or trance." |
Music plays a formative role
|
Music also plays a big role in
Christine's day job.
Unfulfilled by her work as an assistant to a tax consultant, she now works -- after a brief foray into show business as a hard-rock singer --in a music publishing house and is responsible forits song catalog, coordinatesco-writes between songwriters and artists, and negotiates with record companies. |
Her paintings:
emotionally intriguing and a chronicle of our times |
Maybe the rather prude and conservative
upbringing in a small village in Southern Germany led Christine Dumsbsky,
too, to develop an interest in painting -- and especially erotic painting.
"Painting is and was for me a means of expressing my feelings and perhaps also a rebellion against all convention." In any case, the at once photo-realistic and symbolically rich character of her work not only fascinates the observer emotionally, it also provides a small chronicle of our times. |
THE INTERVIEW |
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What led you to start painting,
how long have you been painting? |
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Do you have something like
artistic role models and predilections? |
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Many, many ... how could it be otherwise? I am
a deep admirer of Picasso, love Dali and especially Klimt, and am fascinated
by Warhol, Giger, Sorajama and Vallejo. |
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Does art fill most of your
leisure time as well? |
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The Internet: what significance
does it have for you personally? |
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I set up my web-site, of course, to bring my work
to a wider audience.
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What is your opinion of the
womens' movement? |
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Each painting is accompanied
by a song. What's this about? |
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Nobody can talk to me when I'm painting - I'm
in another world, alone with myself.
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Do emotions alone drive your
painting? |
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Emotions rule me, without a doubt. |
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The women whom you represent
in your paintings appear multi-faceted and contradictory. Do you mean
to say that these many faces exist within each woman? |
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I am convinced that each woman is multi-faceted
and often contradictory as well. |
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"Erotic art" is
only one of your genres of painting. Do you use it to try to break a taboo
or provoke people? |
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Do you see a clear dividing
line between pornographic and non-pornographic art, in terms of sexual
motifs? |
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Actually, I don't have any taboos in this area: erotic painting is plainand
simply my main field of work. "Without passion there is no genius" |