Art by Karlo Walz

… by Photography, Paintings, Sculptures and Ideas.
… by Contemplation, by Philosophy and by Spirituality.
… is the Mirror, the Tool to see into Ourselves and the Option to Grow inward.

It might not so important what we do if we do it at least. Every creation is contributing into our process to grow and in our ability to change us and that might not quick but steadily. This process is the art of life, the essence of life, it is the natures path to adobt and imprive which we need to go and it is not really important if we go to the left or right or any other directions but going is important.

When I started finding me and start hearing into myself, I detected that I can feel people quite good and this is a disadvantage and an advantage. I tried to understand this and hoped I can use it for my artistiv work. You can call it people pleaser, co-dependent or.. but as a gift it is also doing portraits and catching emotions. Cause of this I am obsessed with catching emotions, mimik, gestures
Analyse to understand and to survive.

Grew up in Freundenstadt, Black Forest in South of Germany, studied mechanical engineer and mathematics in Karlsruhe to become a development helper. Worked with physically and mentally handicapped people, programming computer applications and got a BA as financial reporting project lead for a transnational global company while living in Hamburg. Now living in Berlin to persue my artistic way

 

In my earliest memory I started to think about that I wanted to do photography, that was when I was 14 years old. Borrowed sometimes cameras, got a minimalistic own camera (viewfinder plastic camera with a fix aperture and 3 settings of exposure time) and started photography. The more I dived into this the more I wanted to influence the process, learned to develop black and white films and printouts on paper while I still was in school.
Political, travel and journalistic photography was in my mind, story telling by photography, but I was more then fascinated to took pictures at theatre pieces and performances and dances.

 

During my study of mechanics in Karlsruhe I was several months in India exploring how and what is development work. I visited several development projects there but also attended an Ashram in Kerala at that time. Coming back I moved to Hamburg doing a study break with 2 civil service years. Within these I wanted to explore art in Hamburg, at the HFBK (the art school in Hamburg – Hochschule für Bildende Künste). I realised a video film during that time about the community of handicapped people living in Reinbek where I worked with the title „Behindert oder Was“.
Stopping my engineer study and to the step into art in full, I found myself as not mature enough. Financial restrictions, mental anxiety and depressions which I suffered a lot at that time stopped me going this path with all consequences and at the same time I could no longer study engineering at university as I was in full blocked because of the absence of an answer to the „why“.

 

It cost me a lot of time and energy to somehow finalize my study. I worked having now a diplom of engineering, some years as an educational assistent with handicaped adults. Doing some computer programming and then I decided to move on, got a business administration degree and worked for a very long time in the controlling department of an international food company, the last 10 years managing global finance reporting projects in architecture, design and operations. This was a kind of satisfying as this covers almost my initial idea as a devlepment aid for India as I had 3 teams, 2 in india and one in England. In the last 12 years the wish to do more in creativity and art grew instead again more and more and stronger and stronger and with proper work confidence was coming.

 

The wish to do something else, to change and become an artist and to create art by photography, sculptures & performances was more reachable while I transformed myself slowly. Inspired by the novel from Thomas Pynchon I chose my artist name as „Contre Jour“ as my photographic schema and artistic topic. For myself I found the Burning Man culture not only very inspiring but also in practical realisation by just doing art, not caring about quality, making pictures, learn to be consent and also not caring about perfection and others. Seeking beauty and a satisfying vision to follow. Radical self expression was for me not only a huge learning curve to overcome shame and my anxiety about people in general but also learning to express myself, my inner map, questioning my learned roles, questioning my learned inner truth, wishes and pain with one word transform my own self. I can clearly say that Larry Harvey, one of the founder of Burning Man, was for sure one of my artist role model, even not knowing him in person.
I found my spiritual path, which was covered so much and under so many levels of discipline and roles and duty and the lack of confidence, but luckily not completely lost.

 

From a photographic perspective I am influenced a lot by Guy Bourdin, Karl Lagerfeld but also so many more from all the pictures I see which are speaking to me in a good and in a bad way, while I see them. I am very much influenced by modern paintings, modern expression dance and modern theatre but also from philosphers like Bertrand Russel, Wittgenstein and more.
I am addicted to understand more of Quantenphysik, Mathematics and Kosmology. I want to understand the nature of Consciousness and if and how Spiritually might help us to get a more conscious self.

 

I should add that I love the arts I saw, felt and wittnessed at „Black Rock City“ the burn in the US/Nevada, performances, sculptures, poems, inspirational thoughts. For some of them I needed years to understand and others I was somehow even to shy to understand them as I did not took the time to really look at them or I was fighting too much with my own prejudice. What I shame I had to learn and to confess. At leaset it opened my eyes radically. These artists are my really heroes of the time as they are so close and near that I could reach out my hand and participate. I am working to express my feelings, my philosophy, my understanding of the physics of the world, the mathematics, the psychology. Even more I am learning to express my inner self, my anxieties and my abuse experiences. I got the gift that I felt that the creative process helps me to transform in another self which I really enjoy as it frees me up during this process.
I feel so much the need to do art and do creative things, it is like that I am hungry and I need to eat. I am really starving while I cannot do anything.