In his novel "Picture Palace" the great travel writer Paul Theroux quotes Graham Greene as saying: "Travel is the saddest of the pleasures". These days, 'travel' seems to conjure up only thoughts of pleasure and not of sadness. But the word travel is practically identical with travail, 'hard work' or 'burden' (maybe that is why there are so many English-speaking travel writers). And what are the burden and pleasure of travel? Loneliness, alienation, exclusion. Solitude, the view of the foreign, recognition. Bliss, absolute pleasure, the most beautiful solitude.

The black-and-white photographs shown in this exhibition were taken in the course of about fifteen years, while travelling in different parts of Europe, but also in Offenbach, the place that has become my 'home'.
'Travel' as movement in space and time, encounters, foreignness, the feeling of not belonging; fleeting moments of illusion or sudden realisation.
There are people, or traces of them, in many of the pictures, but often they are hardly visible in blurred movement, very far away or just discernible behind lighted windows, concealed in driving cars; perceivable as existence, but not as individuals. Important is the contrast between the photographs: 'dreamlike', unreal seeming situations with extreme lighting, blurred effects, etc. are juxtaposed to sharp, more 'realistic images. The pictures' sequence is associative, like a jazz improvisation.

My work, be it photographic or literary, shows a complete picture with single images, i.e. moments, fragments, instances; a tapestry in which every part works together with the others, but can also stand alone for itself.