My Story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                          

 

 

                                                                                           Survivor, Oil on canvas, 120 x 80cm, 2018.

 

 

I am a German artist, born in Heppenheim (Bergstraße), Germany, where I live and work. If you want to learn more about my reasons for painting I want to take you on a little journey. It will be quite stony, but very honest. It's a story of a little girl who felt very alone, unsecure and grew up in a world that seemed very cruel to her.

 

 

When I was five years old my parents divorced. Nothing was explained to me. My mother just moved away with me and my one year older sister. Right away we got to know my mother's new boyfriend. He was a sadist. Sometimes he came home at night, drunken and forced my mother to open the door. I tried to protect her (as a young girl). I always wanted to go back to my father because my mother treated me like shit. I can remember only one time she hugged me.

I only saw my father on the weekends when he didn't forget to pick us up. At the weekends, my father worked because he is a workaholic. So, most of the time I were at my own and my sister didn't want to play with me because she said I was disgusting and stupid. She didn't even want to touch my hand. When she played with me I had to play the evil stepmother or something like that. My father lived in a house with his parents. My grandfather was an alcoholic, chain smokers, and a choleric person. In the evenings, the children of my uncle, my sister and I usually sat in my grandfather's smoky living room while the adults got drunken.

 

At school, I was harassed every single day from the very first day. For how I look, for what I wear and how I behaved. So I only learned that I am not loveable and cannot trust anyone in this world. The only thing I was not attacked for was drawing!

When I was about eleven, finally my mother and her boyfriend separated and shortly after we should get to know her new boyfriend. At this time he was in jail. I moved back to my father. Because in Germany at age of twelve I could decide where I want to live. My mother said she doesn't want to see me anymore because she said she would receive less money and this is my fault. But I had to see her. My father forced me to. As I said before my father is a workaholic. He wasn't there. Only late at night. I was all alone but not anymore under this circumstances. One year after that my sister moved to my father. It was again another kind of hell.
 

When I was fourteen my father went to his new girlfriend. She was the mother of my former best friend. Then I really lived alone at the age of fourteen. He used to bring me a small amunt of money every week and shouted at me for no reason.

I didn't visit my mother anymore and had rarely contact. She didn't care at all. I was sexually abused by a stranger. I began to cut myself and I have tried to kill myself twice. No one really cared. I isolated myself and drew – my only escape from reality – or I learned for school to proof that I am not what they used me to call. I come from a workin-class and my father wanted me to make my own money as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, I decided to study. When I started my study, I had another nervous breakdown.

I decided to stay in a psychosomatic clinic where they told me I have Borderline and a Complex posttraumatic stress disorder. From then on, I knew why I always felt different from everyone else.

These days I have two wonderful children who I love very deeply. But it still affects and bothers me every single day.

 

Painting is the air that I breathe. It helps me to express myself and to work through my childhood experiences. Because of my experiences and my symptoms that I still have today, I want to break the taboo to speak about and show feelings and emotional disorder. I am sure, it's not only important for myself.

 

Furthermore I am very happy to be part of an artist group, PoetsArtists, and to be able to exchange with many artists. That encouraged me to continue on my way.

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to accompany me on this journey and to learn more about my reasons for painting!

 

Claudia