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Hühnerhaltung (Keeping Chickens) |
Description of the painting
Everyone knows the feeling of moving on unsteady ground. In the oil painting "Keeping Chickens," a woman sits together with four chickens on a board. There is no indication of where or how the board is attached. It may be just above sitting height, so that the woman cannot touch the ground, or at a dizzying height, a situation that might be familiar from dreams.
In the end, not much happens. The situation is not an everyday one, but neither is it so terrible that the actors would run off in all directions. At least the chickens could fly away. All eye each other, trying to adapt to the situation and not standing out too much.
The recent social discussions about species-appropriate animal husbandry due to scandals also come to mind when looking at the picture. The woman in the picture has a chicken on her lap. She obviously has a friendly personal relationship with the chickens. She keeps chickens. However, the term "keeping chickens" is ambiguous. It could also mean that the chickens are keeping a caregiver who is well-disposed towards them.
The painting is part of a series in which the coexistence of people, but also of people and animals, is addressed. Lonely people often look for companions from the animal kingdom with whom they enter an intimate relationship.
My pictures are open to many interpretations. Ultimately, the correct interpretation is the one that the viewer thinks is right at that particular moment. The decisive question is what happens between the viewer and the image, which is hopefully diverse and changeable over time.