Series Stille

The ten works of my series “Stille” explore the fragile space between presence and disappearance – emotionally, ecologically, and perceptually. The photographic collages are based on real encounters with animals, trees, and landscapes. These elements are digitally reassembled into symbolic scenes that hover between memory and imagination.

Often shot at night or twilight, the works depict animals in dim, withholding light: a fox, a bird, a sheep, a unicorn. The landscapes they inhabit feel real yet subtly off – spaces of quiet estrangement.

Stillness, in Stille, is not static. It is never empty; it holds a longing and a sense for what is vanishing. It asks how we perceive when narrative certainty dissolves.

The works evoke fragile thresholds – between distance and intimacy, darkness and illumination, presence and loss. In this suspended atmosphere, the viewer is invited to pause, to feel both the wonder and the unease of witnessing something on the edge of disappearance.

@myplace, photo collage, printed on Hahnemühle paper, DIN A3, 2024

A group of swans stand motionless on a frosty meadow around a bare winter willow tree. The full moon hangs low in the bleached morning sky. The light is soft, almost weightless. The scene appears calm and harmonious—and yet something is not quite right. The swans were photographed in spring in an open field in Lusatia—far away from water, far away from where you would normally expect to find them. Their presence on dry land in such a large group is unusual, a subtle sign of ecological upheaval. The willow tree, photographed in the full moonlight near my hometown, adds another layer of subtle alienation. The collage combines these elements into a landscape that never existed – and yet could. Filters alter the photographic surface, giving it the appearance of a painting. In its beauty and composition, the image radiates tranquility, a suspended moment between familiarity and alienation, and a sign of a creeping process of change.

Silent Night, photo collage,print behind acrylic glass, Din 3, 08/2023

A fox stands alone in a field in the light of the full moon. The horizon is lined with dense bushes, the sky is bathed in the soft blue of the night. The animal is alert, motionless, present. The scene seems frozen—still, watchful, slightly unreal.

Painterly interventions and filters create a fictional landscape that appears both grounded and dreamlike.

Here, silence becomes a form of presence. The fox does not flee, it does not hunt – it is simply there. Yet this is not a moment of peace, but of delay – a moment between instinct and presence, between disappearance and confrontation.

This is Stirling, photo collage, print on textile, Din A0, 10/23

A lonely dog stands in a pale, wintry field. To the right, the forest stands dense and menacing, while broken sunlight breaks through the clouds in a fine beam. The landscape appears real, yet detached.

Like other works in the “Silence” series, this image combines photographs with painterly interventions. The textures are soft-focused, the surface broken up, turning the scene into a dreamlike projection. The animal does not move—it is simply there, still, sniffing, as if waiting for something and moved by the majesty of the trees.

This Is Stirling explores presence in its most reduced form. There is no plot, no narrative. And yet something remains: a fragile awareness, an openness to the possibility that even in silence, something meaningful can emerge.

Look what I found in my secret garden: photo collage,Print on fabric, DinA0, 10/23

A unicorn lies in a wide meadow. The sun has not yet fully risen. Fog hangs over the landscape. The unicorn, symbol of purity and fantasy, lies calmly and somewhat exhausted in the middle. In its silence and unreality, it refers to a deep longing to make the impossible possible and to allow the wonderful to happen – even if only for a fleeting moment. The photo collage was created from two images, a landscape from my hometown and my neighbor’s horse. The unicorn’s horn comes from the animated series My Little Pony

Digital filters and painterly interventions were used to remove any photographic realism and enhance the fairy-tale character.

Watch Out, Photographic Collage,Print on Hahnemühle Paper DinA0, 05/ 2025

A young deer stands still on a meadow, its head slightly raised – as if it has sensed something. At first glance, the scene appears peaceful, bathed in quiet twilight. But a second look reveals an unsettling presence: glowing eyes gleam from the underbrush on the right – a hidden creature, a monster? On the left, a faint human-like figure emerges among the trees – barely visible, ghostlike.

A pale light – moon or sun? – falls eerily onto the scene, casting it in a suspended, uncanny stillness. The surface of the image appears subtly fractured, as if filtered through a dream.

Watch Out is part of the Stille series, which explores fragile thresholds between visibility and disappearance, safety and threat. The composition invites the viewer to linger – and to experience the moment when perhaps something happens: from beauty to alarm, from calm to foreboding.

Treacherous Delight, photo collage, print DinA4 behind acrylic glass, 09/23

Photo collage with painterly elements, printed on paper

A badger moves across a meadow. The trees shimmer in the warm autumn light and the sun gently filters through the branches. The nocturnal badger runs carefree and strangely peaceful under the trees. The scene seems unreal—too quiet, too golden, too gentle.

The badger was photographed after its death. The landscape has been altered by filters and painterly interventions. Through collage and composition, the badger is reinterpreted in an environment that has little to do with its normal behavior and habitat.

As part of the “Silence” series, “Treacherous Delight” is a quiet reversal—a moment when light replaces shadow and death has not occurred. Silence here is a space of transformation, not of endings.

Wandering, Photographic Collage, Print behind Acrylic Glas, DinA3, 2024

In the middle of a vast, moonlit plain, a cluster of tall poppies rises unexpectedly from the darkness. The flowers resemble Papaver somniferum – opium poppies – a species once common in old rural gardens but now banned from cultivation in Germany. Their presence here feels out of place, both nostalgic and forbidden.

Bathed in an eerie lunar glow, the field stretches into the distance, its contours blurred by painterly filters and digitally altered tones. The colors shimmer with unnatural intensity – saturated blues, violets, and reds – evoking a dreamlike or even hallucinatory state.

Wandering is part of the Stille series, which explores emotional stillness, estrangement, and perception at the edge of visibility. The image invites contemplation, yet holds a quiet dissonance. The flowers appear as a trace from another time – a memory, a hallucination, or a warning – fragile and out of place.

The scene balances between the poetic and the unreal, between beauty and quiet unease. What grows here may no longer belong – yet it insists on being seen.

Ethereal II, photo collage, print on paper, DIN A3, 2024

A sheep stands alone on a mist-covered road. The contours dissolve; only the faintest outlines of the world remain. The image evokes a sense of imminent danger. Was it taken through a car windscreen? Is this the moment before a sudden accident?

The fog creates a space of disorientation and stillness, where time and direction seem suspended.

Part of the Stille series, Ethereal II explores the edge of perception—when seeing becomes sensing and clarity fades. The moment captured is fleeting and unanchored, a passage dissolving even as it unfolds.

The Wolfgang Escape, photo collage, print on Hahnemühle paper, DIN A0, 2025

This work is based on the true story of a sheep named Wolfgang—the only one to survive a wolf attack. His throat was painstakingly sewn back together by his owner. In the background of the moonlit forest edge, barely visible, a wolf lurks. Wolfgang stands calmly, but the image is full of tension. His presence is unmistakable and symbolic – a figure between threat and survival. The image reflects a fragile moment in which the danger has passed but has not completely disappeared. The collage is constructed from superimposed photographic elements, all of which, except for the main motif, were photographed in the Heidehof_Golmberg nature reserve. Digital filters detach the image from photographic naturalism and give it a fictional, artificial quality. The uncertain quality reinforces the state of limbo and the threat.

Watchful Eyes, photo collage, 25 x 25 cm, behind acrylic glass on mount, 11/24

A hare sits in the grass under a bare tree, caught in the beam of an artificial light. Is it the headlights of an approaching car? The night is deep, the field wide and empty. But the hare does not flee. Its gaze is alert, unmasked—caught between wildness and stillness.

The landscape, partly illuminated, partly hidden in the shadows of the night, offers no protection. The motif was photographed during the day near my village, as was the wintery surroundings. The impression of flash or artificial lighting was created later using digital filters.

Watchful Eyes is part of the series Silence. Like human intervention in nature, the bright light disturbs the silence here – in a brief frozen moment that seems like a fleeting snapshot.