The dark side of the moon

The dark side of the moon
Oil on canvas
2007
140 x 140 cm

- "Live is bandaged like a braid with the tragic and the humour which cannot be dissolved."
Martin Mosebach,Laureate of the Georg-Büchner-Prize 2007

- This picture illustrates fears,pangs,ailments,abyss in all of us.
While designing it,I was particularly inspired by art works of schizophrenics.
These people tend to physiognomise,geometrise and symbolise which are all attemps to deal with their (psychotic) feelings of uncertainty.
The picture is (besides) to be looked at as a map (of the dark side of the moon),with longitude and latitude and combining/crosslinking several different symbolic meanings:
in the centre of the picture a demon as a picture puzzle figure with several i.e. four frontal and eight profile faces,four eyes,four noses (respectively as the animal associated to the correspondent part of the picture i.e. its meaning);
the same animals appear first of all,and strongly stylised,in the shape of heads instead of hands on this fourhold,grimace-like figure (the prototype of which I found in a figure by Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern) and secondly,enlarged in all four corners of the picture around the disk (of the moon) with (4 + 8 =) 12 mouths.
- top:

Point of the Compass: North
Day Time: Night
Season: Winter
Phase of the Moon: New Moon
Element: Air
Animal: Bat
Ailment: Envy/Greed
Institution: Soul
Gender: Female/Male

- right:

Point of the Compass: East
Day Time: Morning
Season: Spring
Phase of the Moon: Waxing Moon
Element: Earth
Animal: Frog
Ailment: Loss of a Sense of Reality
Institution: Body
Gender: Female

- bottom:

Point of the Compass: South
Day Time: Midday
Season: Summer
Phase of the Moon: Full Moon
Element: Fire
Animal: Snake
Ailment: Aggression/Hatred
Institution: Mind
Gender: Male/Female

- left:

Point of the Compass: West
Day Time: Evening
Season: Autumn
Phase of the Moon: Waning Moon
Element: Water
Animal: Fish
Ailment: Fear,Despair
Institution: Water
Gender: Male