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What does the artist do? He draws connections. He ties the invisible threads between things. He dives into history, be it the history of mankind, the geological history of the Earth or the beginning and end of the manifest cosmos.
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Anselm Kiefer (born 1945) is a contemporary German artist whose work is often epic in size and scale. You can see this in one of the photos below. Many of his more recent paintings use molten lead as a medium which creates these large ominous and heavy (obviously!) areas in the paintings. Over his long career he has been controversial, especially in confronting his German heritage and the events of the first half of the 20th century. But it is always interesting.
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Several things he has written or said have really resonated with me, including one quote from which I stole a bit to use as the title of a painting, The Palace of My Memory. The quote summed up perfectly how I view the body of my work. I believe I am creating a place, a palace if you will, where my collected memory can be preserved and survive, hopefully, long after I am gone.
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Here is that quote:
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But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.
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Redtree Times 