Priamos’ Lamento 

King am I of this rich city, 

as my father Laomedon once, 

and my grandfather Ilos, Tros 

before that, Erichthonios, and 

the founder Dardanus. I know 

all the people here, and they 

know me. I know about the wind, 

the smells on the market place, 

I know the ships by name in our 

proud harbour. Often it's really 

warm here. Most of the time, 

though, I'm cold, my body stiffens, 

maybe by the passing of the years, 

or as an omen of what is yet to 

come, what can't be pushed back. 

My children, great in number, 

are beautiful and lovingly. I cherish 

and I call them by their names: 

Kassandra I love the most of all, 

though she is often so inaccessible 

to me; Hector, of course, the oldest, 

strongest and intended monarch; 

Polyxena, Troilos, all the others; 

yes, even Paris, whom I put in a 

shepherd's bag. I've ordered to 

bring him to the hills and to leave 

him to his fate. I couldn't kill him, 

but I was sure that he was dead, 

until recently. 

I walk along Skamanders' shore, 

hear in the murmur of the stream 

the threat of an ancient divination. 

A fleet is on its way to get Helena 

back and to punish me, my city, 

and my people, for all I didn't do,

but maybe should have done. 

I'll defy fate, against my better 

judgement. Arrived at the Scaean 

Gate I hold on for a while. No one 

can get through here without my 

consent.

Ashes I sprinkle on my head 

and in the evening by a fire, 

I listen to singers and their lyre. 

What will be sung about me later 

by the bard? It’s cold around 
 my heart.

Playing ball Menelaos

King of Sparta - Cheated husband of Helen




Playing ball Menelaos

Envied by all suitors,

run off with desirable

Helena. For a while it goes 

well, but it is not always

easy to be Menelaus.

That damned dominate

brother, that Paris parasite,
that adulterous wife,
pretending to be a phantom
or the shadow of a cloud.
Finally, the Elysian fields,
nectar and ambrosia for
ever, and a lot of eternal
boredom, of course.

Mixed techniques, 2021
48 x 27 x 38 cm

Laertes, father after all

Father of Odysseus and Ktimene, husband of Antiklea,
former ruler of Ithaca, Argonaut


Laertes

You don't have 

to prove yourself

time over time.

Your views

are covered by

a gossamer veil

of humility - only 

your memories

keep you going

on, and maybe

a small trace

of hope.

Birds fly on

and off in their 

shadows on the 

wall, food for 

dreamers and

eager prophets.

Mixed techniques, 2020
48 x 27 x 33 cm

Overlooked Telemachos

Telemachos is the son of Odysseus and Penelope. He grows up at Ithaca during the absence of his father, amongst suitors who compete for the hand of his mother. The first four books of the Odyssee are about Telemachos, the so-called “Telemachy”. In his book “The Many Minded Man. The Odyssee, psychology, and the therapy of epic”, Cornell University Press, 2020, the author Joel Christensen speaks with regard to the poor educational background of Telemachos and his questionable social environment with his mother's suitors, about "learned helplessness". In this hopeless situation the goddess Athene shows up to encourage Telemachos. 


Telemachos wants to eject the suitors but he doesn’t feel strong enough to do so. Athene advices him to leave Ithaca for a search for his father, and to collect different experiences as the ones he cherished so far, to be able to help his father after his homecoming. 







Mixed techniques, 2020
57 x 34 x 36 cm

Eurykleia, victim of slavery

Stages of Eurykleia (1)



Odysseus' nanny, victim of ancient slavery

Respect, dedication, nevertheless slavery.
Laertes bought Eurykleia from her father Ops, son of Peisenor, for twenty cattle. Ops and Peisenor are mentioned in the Odyssee by Homer, without further information about their backgrounds and status. You could conclude that the big deal 'outweighed' the daughter's loss and happiness.

Eumaeos, another slave of Odysseus, complains: "Zeus, of the far-borne voice, takes away the half of a man's virtue, when the day of slavery comes upon him".

Slavery was common practice in ancient Greece. It was considered natural and also economically necessary, which says a lot about the moral state of society.

Mixed techniques, 2020
42 x 26 x 30 cm

Andromache, desparate wife

Princess of Troy, wife of Hector



Andromache's complaint

Hektor, elegant hero,
you beat Patroclos,
brother-in-arms of
Achilles, who will
never forgive you.
 
Your wife and mother
of a futureless son,
weeps and laments
at the prospect of
their pernicious
fate.
 
Homer, however
- the industrious
collector of atrocious
stories – rubs his
hands, satisfied,
looking back at
all that trouble.


Mixed techniques, 2021
67 x 31 x 34 cm

Kassandra, duality of truth

Stages of Kassandra (2)






Kassandra is prophet of Apollo, 
daughter of Priam and Hecuba

Her faith: not to be believed
Bad business for a prophet


Mixed techniques, 2021
41 x 28 x 36 cm

Pronoia, forethought

Hesione Pronoia (Pronoea) was an Okeanid-nymph and wife of the Titan Prometheus. She was a minor goddess of foresight. Pronoia and Prometheus had a son, Deucalion, who was the Greek equivalent of the Biblical Noah in the story of the Deluge, the devastating flood (Genesis 6:11–9:19). Interesting is the more common similarity in stories in different cultural periods of mankind. Prometheus and Pronoia both play an important role as guardians of humanity in confrontations with avenging gods.







Mixed techniques, 2020
43 x 29 x 31 cm

Questionable Kalchas

Danger of ideologies

Kalchas: questionable seer

Maybe I didn't really want 

to see what is, or what will 

come. I do not know the 

language of lost traces, and I 

see only afterwards the faded 

signs on flaking walls, omen 

of translucent birds. They didn’t 
prevent me from recommending 
that atoning sacrifice. Poor 
divination, Iphigeneia is always
 on my mind.

I am wirelessly connected

to false notes on my staff: 

a password, ever sent to me, 

is for my memory too 

long. I am sitting on the 

worn cushion of a rolling 

chair, on my way to an

abyss that I will achieve 

foresight, laughing until 

I choke.

I drop time as a useless

instrument, I embrace 

chaos, I renounce duration, 

repeating doesn't exist. 

Finally I recognize a glimpse 

of an ungodly existence.

Mixed techniques, 2018
75 x 40 x 35 cm

Aeolos, keeper of the winds

Stages of Aeolos (1)

 

Aeolos is the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea and the waters. Aeolos has been appointed by Zeus as the guardian of the four winds: Boreas, the north wind; Notos, the south wind; Euros, the east wind; Zephyrus, the west wind. On his return to Ithaca, Odysseus met the god of the winds on the Lipari Islands. The god gave him a bag in which the headwinds were locked up, for the benefit of a successful journey. His companions, however, could not control their curiosity and opened the bag to see what was inside. The headwinds escaped and caused suffering and misery and so much shipwreck that Odysseus' companions ultimately did not survive the journey. 

Aeolos also had a hand in the fact that at the beginning of the Trojan adventure the Greeks could not set sail, due to a conflict between the commander of the Greeks Agamemnon and the goddess Artemis. The windblock was lifted only after Agamemnon sacrificed his eldest daughter Iphigenia, at the behest of the prophet Kalchas. 

Mixed techniques, 2018
70 x 40 x 40 cm

Patroklos and Achilles, two of a kind

More than a friendship


Brothers in arms and lovers till the end
Two fused faces. If you concentrate on the middle, you see one face



Mixed techniques, 2018
70 x 45 x 45 cm

Comrade Elpenor

Elpenor is one of Odysseus' companions. After a long stay on the island of the sorceress Kirke, he wakes up one day on the roof of her house, where he has fallen asleep. He sees Odysseus' fleet being prepared to leave. "Not without me, is it?", he thinks. Still half misty, he stumbles down the stairs, falls and dies.  Odysseus finds him again during his visit to the underworld, where Elpenor is refused entry because he hasn’t been properly buried.  He begs Odysseus to bury him with dignity, so that his soul can find eternal rest. Odysseus sails back to Kirke to properly bury Elpenor. This story is a model for the importance of burial rituals in Greek mythology and in ancient Greek culture.

Mixed techniques, 2018
60 x 30 x 30 cm

Odysseus, wanderer

Stages of Odysseus (1)

 

Odysseus, when we get to know him, is the king of Ithaca, married to Penelope and father of the young Telemachos. When Helena, the wife of Menelaos of Sparta, is kidnapped by Paris, a Trojan prince, a Greek Alliance is formed to bring her back and punish the Trojans. Odysseus is not very keen to particpate and pretends to have lost his mind. This is seen through by Palamedes, a recruiting officer, who will later, through a cunning treacherous ruse by Odysseus, must pay for it with his life. 

In Homer's "Iliad", 51 days out of the ten-year war against Troy, and later in the story of the long journey back home: the "Odyssey", Odysseus emerges as a heroic but also cunning and ruthless person. Odysseus is the creator of the plan to conquer the Trojans with a large wooden horse, built by Epeios and filled with soldiers. They succeed, despite warnings from the priest Laokoon and the Trojan king's daughter and priestess of Apollo: Kassandra. It is not likely that the capture of Troy actually took place by means of the stratagem of the horse. Homer does not mention it in the "Iliad". In the "Odyssey," Homer gives a brief description in the eighth song about Troy and the horse. Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC) discusses this in detail much later in his "Aeneid" in the second book. The  story was extensively covered in the epic "Ilioupersis" (The destruction of Troy) by Arctinus of Miletus. However, it is entirely based on oral tradition, for nothing of his works has been preserved in written form. It is also not known when Arctinus lived. It is generally believed that he worked between 775 BC and 741 BC and that he was a pupil of Homer. 

When he returns home, Odysseus awaits: his wife Penelope, who was suspicious at first, and who has  remained faithful in a house full of suitors who have been chasing her and  his belongings for the past ten years; many unfaithful servants; his son who has grown up among the suitors who tolerated him at first, but now want to kill him; Eumaios the faithful keeper of his cattle; his now elderly nanny Eurykleia; his also old father Laertes; and his dying dog who immediately recognizes him. He lives on his life after that, restless, scarred, until, as one of the stories goes, he dies accidentally at the hand of his son Telegonos whom he fathered on his return journey with the sorceress Kirke. 

Mixed techniques, 2018
90 x 50 x 30 cm

Hades, dark ruler

Stages of hades (1)

Hades is the ruler of the underworld.  He is a brother of Zeus and Poseidon. Actually, he is entitled to a position among the Olympic gods, but he prefers to live almost always in the underworld. He can make himself invisible by putting on a helmet forged by the Cyclops. Hades is married to Persephone, daughter of Demeter, whom he kidnapped from the upper world. 










Mixed techniques, 2019
90 x 60 x 40 cm

Demeter, mother after all

Stages of Demeter (1)



Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm

Tiresias, blind seer

Stages of Tiresias (1)

 

Tiresias was one of the well-known prophets among the ancient Greeks. Hera punished him with blindness after she asked him who got the most pleasure from sex: the woman or the man. Tiresias could know because he himself has been both: a woman and a man. His answer that it was the woman did not please Hera at all. Zeus, who thought this was going a bit far, gave Tiresius the gift of prophecy as a kind of compensation. Tiresias was a mortal prophet. On his way back from Troy, Odysseus visited the Hades, the underworld where the dead reside, to consult Tiresias about the progress of his journey. Remarkably, Tiresias immediately recognized Odysseus. His blindness was probably over by then. 

In the dramas "Antigone" and "King Oedipus" by the renowned tragedy poet Sophoclos (496 – 406 BC), Tiresias plays an important role. 

Mixed techniques, 2018
60 x 20 x 20 cm

Penelope, noblesse oblige

Stages of Penelope (2)


Mixed techniques (detail),  2018
67 x 55 x 35 cm

Implacable Hera

Stages of Hera (1)


Hera, goddess of women, marriage, family and childbirth
Sister and wife of Zeus


Mixed techniques, 2018
50 x 35 x 40 cm

Charon: no free crossing

Transition


Ferryman of Hades

Carries souls across the river Styx, 
nevertheless: only when a coin had 
been placed in the mouth of a dead person



Mixed techniques, 2018
35 x 30 x 30 cm

Dionysos, ecstasy

Dionysos is, what is called, a relatively young god. He is the son of Zeus and Semele, the daughter of the Theban king Kadmos. Due to an act of jealousy by Hera, the wife of Zeus, Semele was killed. However, the god Hermes saved her unborn fetus and Zeus placed it in his thigh. Dionysos is the second child that Zeus himself bore next to Pallas Athena. In the case of Dionysus, you can even say that a double birth happened to him.

Dionysos is above all the god of wine and viticulture, as well as fruit growing. In this sense, there is also a connection with the goddess Demeter. Both play an important role in the mysteries of Eleusis. Festivals related to Dionysos were often noisy and ecstatic, related to symbolism on the occasion of the dying of the grapes and their regrowth. Savage orgies were held by extravagant women, the so-called Mainads. One of their victims was Orpheus, the desperate one, after his last-minute failed attempt to free his beloved Euridici from the underworld of Hades.

Dionysos was especially venerated in Attica and Athens, but also on the island of Naxos. There he found Ariadne, faithlessly abandoned by Theseus on his return journey, after she had thus helped him in the battle against the Minotaur and her father Minos. Dionysos makes Ariadne his consort. 

The nineteenth-century German philosopher F.W. Nietzsche (1844-1900) introduces in his work "Die Geburt der Tragödie" the Apollonian-Dionysian dichotomy  in worldview and also in the arts: balance, reason, rationality, order, harmony, versus chaos, disharmony, irrationality and instinct.

Mixed techniques, 2018
30 x 30 x 30 cm

Unbelievable Kassandra 

Stages of Kassandra (1)

Trojan priestess of Apollo. Daughter of Priamos and Hekabe. Her fate: not to be believed, because of a curse by Apollo.

As with Medea's sculpture, my interpretation of Kassandra was inspired by a novel by the German writer Christa Wolf (1929-2011). Wolf talks about the siege of Troy from the perspective of the seer and priestess Kassandra. Her story is an internal monologue about the course of her life and the decisions she has always made. She knows she will be killed soon by the hand of Agamemnon’s wife Klytaimnestra. Wolf gives Kassandra a strong voice, that of a vulnerable, but self-aware woman in a predominantly patriarchal society. Kassandra also tells the extraordinary story of a matriarchal counterworld, lettery on the outskirts of the city. In my sculpture, I wanted to depict both the power of her character and the vulnerability of a woman who loses everything through ideology, violence, oppression and incomprehension. 

Wolf, Christa. Cassandra. trans. Jan van Heurck. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984.

Nancy Rabinowitz: Christa Wolf's Cassandra: Different times, different views.

Mixed techniques, 2018
115 x 55 x 40 cm

Insatiable Minotaur

Tragic fusion of a bull and a man, trapped in a labyrinth, defeated by Theseus, who found his way back by a trick of Ariadne, king's daughter of Crete, for which his gratitude was not great, as would later appear. The sad fate of so many king's daughters.

Mixed techniques, 2024
35 x 35 35 cm

Insatiable Minotaur

The figure of the Minotaur plays a recurring role in art, even after the Ancient Greeks. The Minotaur is a tragic, and at the same time threatening figure: victim and perpetrator. Pablo Picasso's Minotauromachie  e.g. is a famous and complex depiction of the duality of the bull man and points to the painter's personal situation and experiences in image components and narrative. 

Mixed techniques, 2024
35 x 35 35 cm

Odyssister: Sibling constellation

Stages of Ktimene (1)


Ktimene is the rather unknown sister of Odysseus
She is mentioned by Eumaeos in the Odyssee, as the youngest child of Antikleia and Laertes. Ktimene was married off to the son of the ruler of a neighboring island. That man went to Troy with Odysseus  but did not return alive.



Mixed techniques, 2020
50 x 26 x 34 cm

Anodos - Kathodos

After months of meagreness

earth opens up, timid

and early, preparing

for the divine.

But, cyclical fate,

of what begins the end

is already said ahead, slow

transforms the new spring

in languid excess.

Hidden from decadent

sun glow, autumn is

waiting - with freakish 
shrill strokes - on the 
room summer is leaving, 

created to be worn out.

Inclement wind and rough 

rain allocate the days now,

until it winter pleases to 

descend - like Persephone, 

Demeter’s daughter:

tributary to Hades,

year over year.

Trojan woman (1)

I could  easily have 
run into you, just 
around a corner, or 
at the marketplace, 
outside the city walls 
of Troy. Only coincidence 
got in our way, and a 
trifle like fourteen 
centuries. You said 
goodbye before I 
could arrive.

Due to time, we have

been separated from 

each other, your possible 
faces are anchored in my 
mind, they continuously
change, like stories I'm 
telling about you.

 


(Detail) Mixed techniques, 2021
56 x 43 x 38 cm

Chivalrous Troilos

Troilos is a relatively underexposed figure in the Iliad. He is the youngest brother of Kassandra and the son of king Priamos and the queen Hekabe. The German author Christa Wolf pays attention to him in her novel "Kassandra" (1983), which comments on events of the Trojan War from the perspective of the Trojan king's daughter and seeres Kassandra.  The Greek warrior Achill killed Troilos brutally in the temple of Apollo, without adhering to honor and the rules of battle. Since then, Kassandra (in Wolf's interpretation) has always called him "Achill, the beast". 

The earliest surviving literary reference to Troilus is in Homer's "Iliad",  Research results point to the year 762 BC as the origin date of the "Iliad" .

 It is believed that Troilus' name was not invented by Homer and that a version of his story was already in existence.

In Athens, the early tragedians Phrynicus (approx 500 BC) and Sophocles (497 – 405 BC) both wrote plays about Troilos. Shakespeare paid attention to Troilos and to Kalchas' daughter Kressida in his play  (1602) "Troilos and Kressida". 

 
Mixed techniques, 2021 

52 x 40 x 24 cm

Hektor, prince of Troy

Stages of Hektor (2)

Hektor is the son of king Priamos of Troy and his wife Hekabe. He is heir apparent and Trojan hope in the war against the Greek alliance.

Achilles - the Greek hero - defeats Hektor, the idol of the Trojans. For Achilles, however, his death is not enough. Hektor is dishonored in front of his family and his people, tied behind Achilles' chariot, dragged through the dust, humiliated. 

In my paintings and sculptures I have depicted Hektor several times, in different stages. In two sculptures I depict his transience, symbolizing the demise of a human being, the degeneration of humanity, and the downfall of a dynasty. It's not pretty, art isn't always beautiful.

Mixed techniques, 2021
52 x 42 x 42 cm