UNTIL DEATH DO US PART
2002–2004
I focused on marriage relationships in the portraits of five couples, i.e. on everything that is hidden between a man and a woman who have been living together for a long time and want or have to, for some reason, share their lives. What are the mysteries of long-lasting unions of partners and their viability, and how real is actually a happy everyday cohabitation? The dissolution of my own marriage, shortly before I began these paintings inspired me to deal with this topic, too. I had the general feeling that I was surrounded by relationships falling apart all around me, one by one.
I asked five couples in my circle of aquaintances to be my models. I knew these people for some time already and I had my own imagination about their relationship. They had been living together for a long time – ten, fifteen or more years and all of them had children. At the same time, I wanted neither of the partners to have a distinctly weaker position in the relationship – in other words, their “power” relationship had to be balanced. I based my paintings on my own photographs taken at the portrayed couples’ homes.
When painting, I employed the principle of a picture inside a picture. In the background of the portrayed persons I placed pictures of what I found important, typical or otherwise associated with the relationship of the represented couple – for instance wedding or family photographs, a picture by Edward Hopper etc.
