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Jurgen Geier

I was born in 1963 in Bietigheim-Bissingen, near Stuttgart/Germany. After school, I apprenticed as a model-maker for industrial castings, went to sea, worked as a gardener and was a public servant at the office for German Telecomunications for eight years.
 
From 1989 on, I apprenticed to become a gilder and worked for an art and picture-frame company until 2000. Besides making handcrafted picture frames, I also did restaurations of all kind, from sculptures and furniture to paintings of all classes.

During my freetime, I built a 36 feet gaff-schooner, that part-time was (and still is) used as my home and art studio.
 
At the end of 2000, I moved to North Germany, where my partner lives. For two years, I worked as a glassfibre worker and wooden boatbuilder for different companies.
 
In 2003, I decided to give my art work a chance and started painting full-time, falling deeper and deeper into the subject since then and I hope, I never have to stop.

Being born in a small, dry South-German village, I very early discovered that some saltwater must be running through my veins.
My desire to be near the sea was irresistible.
 
The view to distant horizons, the motion of waves and the changing light in an endless sky were the essentials I would have needed to stay alive happyly.
But my dreams were soaked up by the dusty fields and dark forrests that surrounded me. I started to become desperade.

Some day however, I had a deep look at a bare white painting canvas and hardly was able to walk away from it. There they were, the adventures behind the horizons of my deserted reality: the sea became a roaring scene of blinding coloures and from that day on, my freedom was the smell of turpentine- I had become an artist.
 
Today, living near the North Sea-coast, the subject of my work has moved away from the traditional seascapes of my youth to more sudden insights: it is the thin line between sea and land, the short moment filling the gap from ebb- to flood tide, the little step between dream and reality, that let me open the next page of my live:a bare sheet of canvas, ready to be filled with dreams, fears, happiness and unseen reality.
 
Finally, when I see a little smile rushing over the onlookers faces- I know, I did it right.