Artist Statement As an artist I feel, the further I went away from the people and the life of my origins, the easier it was for me to experience myself clearly and to grasp who I am. Who I am in relation to the many different forms of existence of people on this planet. And that in fact how much in essence I am the same as the man that might look so different, next to me. My journey to search for who I am on the inside took me far away looking around me on the far outside.
TRAVEL TIMELINE
	Born and Raised in Germany
1980	USA and Canada, 5 months hitch hiking Mexico, 3 months working in Mexico City. Guatemala and Belize, 2 months backpack travel.
1981-1986	Studying Art Therapy at the “Freie Kunstudienstaette Ottersberg” by Bremen in Germany.
1983	West Africa, 4 months hitch hiking from Germany to Spain, boat to Algeria and hitch hiking through the Sahara. Mostly staying with African friends and their families, sketching for paintings.
1986	West Africa, 3 months visited the same friends, sketching for paintings.
1987	Moving to San Francisco, California.
1989	Starting fine art photography, taking black & white portraits of African American Men.
1993	Haiti, 3 months volunteering in an AIDS hospice in Jeremie taking black and white portraits of friends and families outside of the hospice.
1999-2000	West Africa, 3 months visiting the same friends in Mali and traveling through Ghana, taking color portraits.
2002	New Guinea, 3 months taking black & white and color portraits of people that still live a traditional live style, mostly untouched by outside influences.
2003	New Guinea, 1 ½ months returning to the same people for more black & and white and color portraits.
2005	South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland, 3 months portraits of people in townships, villages and nature.