Conversation
Dr. Ian Chisholm in conversation with Evelyn Garden
Part 1: Traveling in Liguria
Chisholm: You are constantly surrounded with art: Besides this studio here in Liguria you also have a studio in Berlin and in your house hang paintings by friends as well as your own works, some partly un-finished. Does it influence your art whether you work in the city or in Liguria?
Garden: Definitely, because life in Berlin pulsates more: everything is more driven from the outside. Quite different things work on me in Liguria: The brightness of the light, the down-to-earth people and the whole southern flair. Above all it is here I find the inner space to work. If you compare the artistic process to a flow of energy sometimes stronger or sometimes weaker, then I move between these two poles.
Chisholm: You have travelled a lot. Can one see your work also in this context?
Garden: Journeys or in fact changes of location are critical in defining oneself anew, to feel new. In the unknown you change your perception, rearrange it, which acts as a focus. Distance clarifies my experience and my work. So after my return, I often find it much easier to finish work with which I have been fighting for a long time. Lately my travels in Asia have left a deep meaning in my work: In Laos and Cambodia - life is so meditative and quiet which is reflected in the flow of the Mekong and above all the people are calm and kind to each other.
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