"Colour has become more dominant in my work in the last four decades, because working with colour suits my view of aesthetics and understanding of perception. We never see the same thing twice. Our brain receives portions of reality, and our perception of reality changes. Colour communicates emotions, including joy and expresses many nuances and insights.

 

As long as I can remember, I have been doing art with whatever materials were available. When I was growing up in post-war Germany on my grandfather’s small farm near Heidelberg, my first drawings were with homemade charcoal on the backside of wall paper torn from destroyed buildings. In the sixties, when I was studying art, the air was thick with smoke from fiery talk about art and its role in Germany. Was it even possible to do art after the holocaust and after such death and destruction? Like many, I questioned how art could help clear up the rubble in our hearts and minds. Can art help weave a new social fabric that does not strangle truth and justice and is free from the grasp of racism and nihilistic thought?

 

My answer was to search for ways to create life affirming art. My belief in this possibility remains alive to this day. A positive view of aesthetics enables sharing wonder and joy to affirm life and makes a positive role possible for the artist. Colour, like music, has a complex effect on our perception. It includes a vast spectrum of possibilities to express joy passionately and insights with nuances. I experience music when I work with colour to communicate what I see and feel. Bach and Beethoven are with me when I paint. My fascination with music led me to a jazz cellar in Heidelberg in 1960, to a chance encounter, which decades later brought me to Victoria with its impressive light and its colours.

 

Maybe a human being’s oldest positive colour experience is the spectacle of sunrise and sunset. This daily light show leaves an enduring stamp on our perception of colour and our ability to sense and imagine its effect. This global phenomenon is a source of shared wonder and joy mediated through the universal language of colour."

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– H.V. Schmitt