Making Of
It´s a Making-Of about suREAL as a project.
It´s a Making-Of about my transformation from an athlete to an ARTlete to an artist.
It´s a Making-Of about myself growing as a person and as a personality.
“Making Of” is the IV and final part of my transformation series.
A series of short stories that should tell my story.
That should explain where I come from, where I am today and where I´m going to.
That should explain why all this happens and how I feel about it.
It´s the story of my life pretty much.
There´s been “WHY” to tell how all this actually started.
There´s been “MORE“ to show how everything processed, where all that comes from and how much it means to me.
There´s been “suREAL” as an example of an art project from the present.
A very special project to be honest as it gave me the chance to be the artist myself for the very first time since I do projects like these.
An example of the learning process I´m into at the moment.
A super interesting and exciting learning process that helps me grow.
Grow as a person.
Grow as an artist.
But also and still grow as an athlete.
It´s a Making-Of myself and a Making-Of suREAL.
How did it start?
How did all that grow inside of me?
How did suREAL come to life?
My story short:
There´s been a huge interest towards making photos, photography and all the creative work that goes into it from the very beginning.
All the creative work behind the scenes but also the interpretation of the product.
It´s been a very close partnership with all the photographers I worked with and I´m so thankful for.
Such a big inspirational part from my side that I was able to put into all the work we did.
It just felt natural and very important to me to have that part.
To be able to influence all the work we were doing.
All the projects just felt to be my babies pretty much as most of it started as an idea in my own head and so I wanted to be part of it until the final product.
Working with all these creative heads again and again, it was just a matter of time until all that turned into more creative ideas and arty kinda products.
And it´s not that I didn’t want all that to change.
It´s not that I didn´t like it but the other way round pretty much.
I was the one who couldn´t get enough. I was the one who always wanted more of that, even more than the photographers themselves sometimes.
It was just time for my mind and my head to change.
Time to get a different and a lot more open perspective to all the work that I´m doing.
To life pretty much.
All that turned into a big passion besides riding bikes.
Maybe not besides riding bikes, but within riding bikes.
All that freeride kinda lifestyle was predestined for.
It just had so much space and room for all that.
All the space and room I needed and wanted so bad to just let go and do things my way.
All that grew inside of me and it was simply meant to get a bigger place in my life.
It was meant to even change some projects into real art and helped me to start working on certain ideas.
It´s been ideas and topics that in my mind were and still are important. Topics that are very close to my heart and that have a deeper meaning.
Topics that are worth thinking of.
Critical topics out of real life.
I just wanted to tell them and create something to do so.
I also wanted to use my big passion for riding bikes and all my professional background to do so because this was and still is such a big part of me.
I started to work with photographers.
Not as I used to before, but to work on certain art projects.
On certain artworks.
On my first ever exhibition and on more that would follow.
All that improved by working with real artists.
Cooperations between myself as an athlete with creative ideas and artists that were interested to work on them.
Ideas and projects that changed my life.
Cooperations that changed my life.
That changed my life just by having had the chance to be part of and to experience all that.
That made me start to think different.
A lot different.
It´s been Inspiration from there.
Inspiration from artists like Kowalski.
A super interesting human being with an extraordinary and amazingly creative vision for art and for life in general.
Such a big enrichment to my life to have met this guy, to have had the chance to work with him, talk to him and to look at his art through his eyes at some point.
An artist and a person that motivated and inspired me like no other and still does.
Inspiration I appreciate more than words can say.
Inspiration from friends like Katharina Eder.
Not a professional artist yet, but it´s that big passion for her own lifestyle that makes it impressive to me.
Inspiration from artists and extraordinary people like Jasmin Rituper.
Totally different background, totally different “discipline” if you can even say so and also quite a different mindset at some point.
But it´s that huge passion and that amazingly strong drive for her own lifestyle that inspires me so much.
All the hard work she puts into making all this possible.
Living her life as a human artwork doing what she loves a 100%.
Being herself a 100%.
Getting to know these amazing people and trying to understand who they are, what they are doing and why they are doing it is such a privilege.
Such a gift to myself.
People I really needed up to this point and still really do.
People that help me to get and have the courage to be myself in my everyday life, as a person and also as an artist.
People that really understand what it takes to do so.
But it´s also been inspiration from daily life as a professional Mountainbike rider.
There´s so much that just comes from being out there by myself, rambling through mother nature, riding bikes and taking my time to get lost in thoughts.
It´s Mountainbiking where all that came from at the very beginning and it´s still Mountainbiking that gives me all the freedom I need to eather get ideas from or implement them with.
It´s so much more than just sports.
At that point I have to say Thank You to Freeriding for giving me all that.
For having room for all my ideas.
For all the inspiration in the past and still.
So thankful.
It´s been inspiration from daily life in general.
There´s so much going on in this world that´s worth thinking of and I just feel urge and obligation to talk about it.
To write about it.
To do projects and installations about it and let them speak.
All these inspirations and all previous art projects, installations and cooperations got me to the next step.
The idea to try it myself.
The idea to do it myself.
To follow the inspiration and get my own style.
suREAL was born.
The story of myself becoming an artist was born.
From an athlete to an ARTlete to an artist.
suREAL.
An example of an art project.
A first example of my very own art project.
A step into the future for myself.
suREAL.
A Process.
A process of finding my style.
My style of realizing ideas whatever technique, method or material it is.
My style of doing and showing things. For a reason.
My style of telling important and meaningful messages.
A process of learning to think like an artist, act like an artist, be an artist.
Carbon.
It had to be carbon.
Simple, handsome, wild.
Just loved it from the beginning.
It´s the material that I first tried with and that felt good to me from the very first day.
No colours.
Really wanted to keep it plain.
To keep it plain and do not put additional factors into it.
Just keep it plain as it is and let all other important and meaningful factors do their work.
Simple materials.
Cheap paper and classic carbon to not focus on the costs of an artwork but focus on the meaningful message from the artist.
It´s money that rules everything out there anyway but it shouldn´t rule the artist´s work and message. At least not this time.
Natural framing.
It felt good to leave the artworks as they are.
To not cover them with frames and protect them with glass.
It felt good to bring the artworks into the focus and not let frames distract from the most important.
It felt good to use natural kinda framing around the artworks fitting the simple, natural and wild style of them and their meaning.
Crumpled.
Again it felt good and right.
It fits the wild style and look of the carbon and even highlights it.
It gives me as the artist the opportunity to demonstrate the importance of perspective.
Different perspectives with different insights into the artwork.
It just opens up an opportunity for all those who take their time to really look at it.
For all those who appreciate all the work that goes into a project like this and are interested in the thoughts behind all that.
Exhibited on the floor.
I just couldn´t hang them onto the wall.
It didn´t feel right.
It didn´t allow all the different very important perspectives that I wanted to show.
But could I really do that?
Could I really not hang my drawn artworks?
Could I really not do what everyone else is doing?
I really had to think about it and realized that this is just another step into becoming an artist myself.
Another step of my learning process.
Doing things my way.
For a reason.
German language.
It´s my mother language.
It´s the language I grew up with.
The language I could speak my first ever words in.
The language I did my first steps into life with.
It felt natural to do my first steps into this new world using the same language as I did on all previous important and life changing steps in my life.
suREAL took me through all this.
Through all these thoughts, decisions and learnings.
It challenged me and it made me satisfied working on it.
It might not be perfect.
It might not be everyone’s favourite.
But it´s a very important step in my life and the start into a new chapter.
The next step on my journey called life.
It´s a process.
A very interesting process.
A never-ending process.
It´s a story.
A story of life.
A story from an athlete to an ARTlete to an artist.
And ARTlete is what I feel like at the moment.
It´s a journey and an adventure that I´m on.
A journey and an adventure that turned into an ARTventure.
And the journey continues.
#MakingOf #transformation #artofliving #talentcomesnaturally
THANK YOU to everyone involved.
It truly means the world to me.
Photographers: Rene Deutschländer & Christoph Breiner