_{Image courtesy of Sabine Oecking}

Interview: Sabine Oecking
Luca Curci talks with Sabine Oecking during THE BODY LANGUAGE 2019 at Misericordia Archives.

Sabine Oecking was born 1965 and grew up in Munich, Germany. Her passion for art began at early age. She grew up surrounded by art as both of her parents were highly creative: her father was a painter and her mother a goldsmith. After many years focused mainly on figurative paintings, she started experimenting with colour and abstract art. Sabine was given the opportunity to work as an international IT specialist, however, in 2013 she had reinvented her live by pursuing art full time. Since then she’s been working at her studio in Dortmund, Germany. This pushed her to expand her horizons and between 2015/2016 she completed a master class with Professor Adam Jankowski, professor at the Offenbach University of Art & Design. Artist about her work: “The main theme of my work is luck and happiness. I have developed my own style with spray paint, ink and sometimes acrylic paints. I want to capture and preserve happy moments, create positive atmosphere and to make this moment last.  I am deeply interested in the emotional response to my work and how it’s being perceived by the audience. My series „Happiness and Life“ is the reflection of life being organized, sorted and controlled versus the chaotic, organic and unorganized. It is from these pairs of opposites that all world manifestations spring creating real harmony. Human existence is imperfect and sometimes uncontrollable. It is hard to handle those things we never wanted, expected or desired to happen to our lives, but they may tun out to be a real blessing. At the end, imperfections, scars and all our failures make us even more special.”

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_{Image courtesy of Sabine Oecking}

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Luca Curci – What is art for you?
Sabine Oecking – Everything. A life without art is not worth living. There must be more in a life than fulfilling primary requirements, such as hunger, thirst etc.

LC – What’s your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
SO – My father painted, too and my mother is a gold smith. I grew up with art and I loved going into a museum discovering all types of art. being curious I very much love experimental painting. My topic is happiness and how to paint it in a modern, contemporary way. looking for those ways is still the biggest influence.

LC – What is the most challenging part about creating your artworks?
SO – To be patient. there are a lot of trials which produce results, which do not have enough quality. To try again and again is really a challenge.

LC – Did your style change over the years? In which way?
SO – smile, oh yes! I changed my style. About 7 years ago I om´nly painted trees for two years. I found it so fascinating to find a way painting a tree which is abstract but still a tree…. I tried coal, chalk, acrylics and much more. Then I moved forward to complete abstract topics until I found a new topic in „happiness and live“.

LC – Do you agree with our vision of art and what do you think about the theme of the festival?
SO – Art is a universal language and something which is able to express feelings. A festival brings a lot of different approaches and ideas about the same topic together and shows an incredible richness and variety of one and the same topic.

LC – In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the festival’s theme?
SO – Humans live their lives and there are certain patterns in live. there are things which you do again and again, like brushing your sheets, combing your hair, washing your hands etc – you do the same thing, it is about the same with minimal deviation. the same goes for stencils. This is why I love stencils and see them as the perfect „picture“. And there is something else: like different things in life, like family, friendship, profession, hobby or like different moods life is colorful. But here are things which link the different things together, like the same ethics, the same world, the same ideas, believes etc.

LC – What do you think about ITSLIQUID Platform?
SO – Interesting platform, especially as you link artists from a lot of countries, different cultures and ideas.

LC – Do you think ITSLIQUID GROUP can represent an opportunity for artists?
SO – You are the glue to the artist’s community. Of course this is an opportunity.

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_{Image courtesy of Sabine Oecking}