"All of my art is really about conveying emotions. It can be a painting, a video installation or a piece of music but basically it is about how to touch upon the eternal questions of joy, sorrow, life and death. It is about the existence and the basic needs. The viewer is an equally important part of the artwork as the actual content of the work itself. Both feed from each other and it ́s within that connection that something sacred could happen, a highly personal experience between the viewer and the work."
- Herman Lohe
In Herman Lohe´s practice the natural world serves as a support on which he can project emotions and highlight eternal questions of what it is to be alive and what it means to be human, our connection to nature and our relation to the natural world. Lohes serene landscapes invite the observer to ponder their relationship with the natural world and human existence.
The video installation Dies Irae (which refers to a 13th century poem previously quoted by Sir Walter Scott and Oscar Wilde) allows Lohe to express the sensitivity of the natural environment through nature's own brush strokes. The video itself is pure, in allowing the landscape and its dawn awakening to speak for itself. In Postludium for Waterlilies 2022 he continues to work on the subject of waterlilies from both an art historical perspective but also taking the motif of waterlilies, so often depicted through the history of art, from a different angle to highlight the fragility of a untouched eco system. "We only see the tip of an iceberg when we see the waterlily flowers floating on a lake, but under the surface there is a different world, a eco-system and a fragility we might never be aware of. This awareness could be applied to so many things. Often we only see what we enjoy, or what gives us pleasure. The flower, the surface, morning mist and light, but underneath, that's were the real magic happens. All those things that is imperative for the flower to even be able flourish. Don't forget to look beyond what meets the eye."
Lohe's work is informed by a profound understanding but also a recurring questioning of the relationship between humanity and nature. In his paintings we can trace an exploration of just that. To visualize and illustrate what does not always immediately meets the eye.