Biography

 
 
 
The artist's view

Insight into the biography of my father and our special relationship

 

Günther Arthur Köhler, painter, born on 12.07.1922 in Altenkroitsch at Leibzig.

  • 1941- Studies at the Academy of Applied Arts in Munich, interrupted by the Second World War
    1949/50 – Malunterricht bei Prof. Krytschewski in Heidelberg
  • 1956/57 – painting lessons with Prof. Krytschewski in Heidelberg ” Schule des Seens” , bei Prof. Oskar Kokoschka in Salzburg
    1960 – - study stay Academy Mykonos in Greece - France - Italy
  • Since 1954 exhibitions in Soest, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, Heidelberg, France - Aix on Provence in the Abbaye Royale du Moncel (bronze medal) Aix on Provence in der Abbaye Royale du Moncel ( Bronce Medallie)
    member of the Heidelberger Kunstverein, Karlsruhe and Munich.

The realization of his art grew out of the realization of his spiritual knowledge.
It is the consciousness of life, the essence, which is in everything.
The essence, which we can only feel with the whole sensiblität our heart and life of our whole being.
He often said: Grasp the moment, "LIFE", that's all I can do and what I want.
My life is meaningless without detecting the moment.
Right now, everything in art and love, we can capture the moment.
Timelessness, transparent, transformed into another dimension of consciousness.
The art world exists in the contrasting world of rational thinking.
Art is life and life is an art.

My dad was deeply rooted in nature and grew up as a child in a world without much technology and hustle and bustle, and that was also what enabled his whole talent, to flower to the full, and to be "one with nature".
He swam in the river, fished, built, raged with the other children. Kindergarten and compliant social rules exsistierten little in its early growth, later in school.
He lived alone with his mother, half-sister and uncles, in a simple, age-old, small half-timbered house, in a tiny, original town, Old Groitzsch at Leibzig. At that time there was no electricity, telephone ect ...
His father married another woman and had a import, export business in shipping.
When my father 12 years old, he lost his beloved mother, with 40 years, inexplicable.
He had to work for his uncle in Leibzig and very hard in his large, elegant cafe until then began the second World War.
He was only 17 when he came to Stalingrad, and he experienced death and untold suffering countless people, many years. Fate, incomprehensible destruction , will to survive, snowstorms at - 40 C, entloses marching to death, hunger, disease, living like an animal in the earth, as far as the abyss of possibility.
He told me alot...........
The war has like everything, two pages.
The survival of their full range of distance, the forests of Russia, in winter.
The senses awaken and return to the animal instinct.
Smell, taste, touch, hearing, suffering, because death may be at any moment there.
My father read the book, War and Peace, by Tolstoy and someone shot in the book and not in his heart.
Thousands of times died and another he remained alive.
On December 7, his birthday, defended his regement of 369 man, a bridge that defended the Russians with tanks and atelerie.
Millions of shrapnel and machine gun fire, killing all regement, except for my father.
Many glowing splinters shot out his eyes, his head and his hands and he much covered in blood in the snow.
Unspeakable pain made him almost unconscious, but when he heard the voice shout out the cook in the distance: not I)): They are all death !!!))))), he raised his head and said.
He brought him to the old horse-drawn cart to a military hospital, where a wonderful doctor who was able to save his eyesight, an eye through surgery.
It is God's providence that this happened and he was able to paint these wonderful works of art in his life.

Through World War II, he has experienced and survived the abysses of humanity.
Through hell and back to life, without much destruction, but with many splinters in the head and in the hands, physically damaged and starving to the skeleton, with mental wounds.
As newly bored, appreciate life, love and respect in its deepest form, gratitude.
Life lives through you.
My father was and is one of the most wonderful, loving, heartfelt, great, spiritual, gifted people and artists. A realized being that opened my eyes and my heart, for this wonderful world, in life and in death.
A great gift that never goes away.

After the war he went to Salzburg to the art academy - "The School of the Lake" by Prof. Kokoschka, after having to drop out of studies at the Munich Art Academy before the war broke out.
The time with Kokoschka was a very profound artistic process, and both artists combined a deep, inner understanding of art and philosophical, mystical consciousness in another dimension.
It developed a close friendship that understood and transformed everything without words,
a soul equality that connected a life.
Kokoschka said in front of all the students, who is only one among us, who really understands and can implement "ES". A true, genuine artist.
Kokoschka was very impulsive and harsh, he came, looked and said that is "good", there is "life" in it. A true talent.
He was thrilled that my father painted a picture in one day, without interruption. Just as Van Gogh could.

Among other things, Prof. Krytschewski was also an art professor, who had a very deep understanding of art and was a very good teacher without many words that could convey Essence.
My father was honored to be able to study art in Heidelberg for a few hours,
for his doctrine reached far, gave him impulses, insights that helped him to develop further.

He only painted for the sake of art.
Philosophy, in its deeper-lying world, was a vehicle, a constant companion of his thinking.
He left not only Western literature, art history and philosopy, such as Schoppenhauer, Nitsche, Kant, "Goethe" ...... but also Socrates, Plato ... eastern as well as Lao Tzu ..., but all the great world literature, with Dostoyevsky at the top.

The transcendental meditation of Maharishi Mahesh also interested him.
He was very often in meditation and in the artistic process, even if he did not paint and when I came to his apartment I opened the door to another world, a strong energy, transcendent energy emanating from Him filled the room and permeated me. Words can not express this experience. It is a space of timelessness and antimatter.

Of course my father studied many artists, her life and her paintings in his art books and saw many works in museums.
Among the Impressionists, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Renoir and Monet were his favorite painters. Among the old masters Rembrandt, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Goya ...
But one should refrain from studying other artists and concentrate on oneself in order to follow his own style.

We had endless conversations about space and time, timelessness, the moment, past the moment Future, Cosmos,
transcendental worlds, matter Anti- Matter, love, hate, happiness, art, life ......
It was always alive, exciting, full of love and harmony, beautiful, fulfilling, connecting heart energy that we shared, lived, ever new, in here and now.
A happiness, a love. To be happy, to have, to know each other.
To be soul brothers who know all depth, to be able to exchange the whites of the spiritual worlds.
Exchanging intense, happy, living, real, deeper and deeper.
A living, fascinating, transcendent world that is closed and unknown to most people.
Energien, die uns über die sogenante normale, rationale Welt hinaus heben.
The all-static, dead, boring, repetitive, frustrating, man-made brought to life, the divine power to shine through.
That which one can not express in words, because the language is so limited, a prison that limits us, if one thinks only in language.
The only verbal means, but the other possibilities we have when we communicate with the cosmic, so-called divine energy, is a door to unending fulfillment, the true self.
Meditation, art and love express this, in timelessness.
Of course, I grew up with it because my father was my spiritual master.
Because "it" lived Him as in Zen, unspoken, pronounced and realized in artistic creation.

When I was a small child he painted me, standing in the light in front of the window, calm, penetrating deeply, I felt this very special feeling, this light and energy- love- Feeling a quiet, complete in here and now, strong power, from Him and from the light. Him, me, standing, sitting, concentrating, with every cell of his body and soul.
A very special feeling, a meditation that runs like a thread throughout my life.
The Essence of my life, what I feel deep inside, solid like a rock in the ocean of the tides, stalwart, incontrovertible, a vast energy that is infinite, indestructible, the very core of life.
We feel that in us and always there.
What "life" is about. I am grateful and happy for it.
The only enlightened happiness on earth, love selfrealisation.

My father was a quiet, love-filled person, full of
Liveliness and sparkling life.
Giving love and receiving,
but also of deep sadness and pain.
He came in deep into both.
Day and night, shade and sun.
In his artistic work, he becomes one with himself and the world,
with the universe.
Transforming everything, life, death, infinity.
Immersion in the subject - Object, merge, without thought, only let the divine power flow.
In only one day a painting !
Start and stop in the river.
A river flowing in the ocean.
String moments together and let them be at a moment.
One moment one picture.
Many moments in a picture.
One statement many statements.
Statements, what said - must be shown.
From me, through me, with me, in here and now.
Now for all eternity **********
The soul of art,
the soul in us.
Matter turns into matter and goes back to antimatter.
From "feeling" we describe a picture.
Transcending becomes matter in colors and they are infinitely interpretable.
We can interpret subjectively, in infinite forms,
but only the feeling is our own truth.
Firm and strong is the soul feeling, our essence.
We describe with the understanding, changeable human.
Color, expression of our soul as we see the world,
the world sees us with different eyes.
colors- without words.
colors- that reflects in us,
like a mirror our soul.
soul- of the color.
Color of God.

I saw my father painting, his back to me, in the sun,
looking to the cornfield, immersed in the light, in the smell of ripe corn.
A white area in front of him, holding the palette, calm with full force.
Power that radiates, creates, transmits schaut, durch-fühlt.
Rough points, fast and quiet, set dynamically, here and there, no structure, slowly building up, out of nowhere, more and more complementary,
from all directions.
No plan- a seeing.
No understanding- Knowledge.
The area fill with emotion.
Do not know what happens, feel how it will be.
A miracle that manifests itself.
Moment by moment a picture emerges.
It comes from nowhere and becomes visible true.
Color mixes with many points that contain everything
Light- Shadow - Live- death- Love- God.
Pasty pastel colors.
Kaos becomes structure.
Impressionism.

The emergence of a work of art is born of silence.
To enter and to open oneself to the process of becoming.
In meditation, the deep inner view connects with the cosmic world.
It is not a rational process.
The world that the artist experiences through conscious perception,
in a constant process of deepening energies,
He dives from the material world, into the dematerial world,
which does not consist of thought structures and thus can not be grasped.
From the macrocosm to the microcosm.
Subject and object become one.
It is a fusion, the viewer disappears in the considered.
A world of feeling that absorbs the information of the divine.
The perceived and seen visible in color.
Colors that know.
A knowledge without understanding.
Everything is one- feel- see.
In the manifestation that flows through us, in a state of forgotten, pure energy - Göttliche – Energie.
To rewrite a "consciousness" that is not detectable - only experienceable, deep within ourselves.
In the self-realization of our core, of our being, which connects,
with everything that exists in the smallest and largest and in non-existent.
Art is meditation when the viewer forgets himself and yet is aware of himself.
An individual expression of his innermost.
A sixth dimension, which is not open to many souls, because the door is too closed.
A world that brings everything to life and flows constantly, to awaken more.
A life of passion, humility and love for life.
Forgetting the values ​​of our society, as nonsense and haunting that does not last, but as a parasite, hangs in our brains.
Who propagates us to see the world as we should see it, made by people who are not creative, but EGO - besessen.
Life is much more than just a lot of thought patterns that come and go and repeat themselves without a break.
Being in here and now and getting rid of old structures in order to be "open" to another world- Worlds much further and infinitely greater than we can ever grasp.
We must forget the identification of our brain.
Experiencing something yourself, in conscious being, is true knowledge- Self-knowledge.
I feel the energy of my self, of my father, of the penetrated souls that afflict me and we communicate in our world.
A mysterious world, full of wonder and love, aliveness.
Whether we are here or not.
Fascinating life, oh life without limits.

My dad was in meditation many times and I saw by his look that he was absent.
He did not hear me when he immersed in the processes of creativity.
A picture emerged in his mind's eye, where the process of creation of creative people takes place.
To feel oneself, to let oneself fall, from the seeing to the transcendent world.
From being to not being.
Feel and portray the wonder of life.
At one point, stick to a leaf, a flower.
See the tiny dots that will be a whole.
Feel the soul of life, be in it.
One eye was blinded by the war, the other became worse, but the third eye was sharp, differentiated, layered and looking through, into another dimension.
When we hear the wind in silence and peace and the sound becomes a feeling, touch the light touch on our skin, let the feeling spread, penetrate us, with its secrets.
Hear- feel- see- perceive- no thinking, only feeling.
Being and dissolving, being carried away, into the nothingness of the wind.
To feel our true being, what we really are.
Wind- water- sun- Silence of the night and radiant light of the day.
The five elements that surround us and are within us, whether we see them or not.
Our mind is not meant to really frost, know, think, understand.
It can only be an instrument that helps us to go in that direction
if we consciously use it to go this way, for our soul knows the goal.
The seed of enlightenment, pure being -pure self.
A self that is the true self we feel very deep within.
If the seed is not too deeply buried, or crippled, unable to live,
made by his creator.
No questions, what is ...... Why?
If he reaches the light, grow.
From the darkness to the light, out of itself, with the energy of the liveliness, out of inner own power, until it pierces the darkness and grows through the sun.
He unfolds through the dark nutrient-rich energy that gives him strength to express his own information, his potential.
From the dark elemental force of the earth, to the sun in the universe, everything is a divine force.
No good and evil, only being.
Some seeds do not go up, some are made for it.
Be yourself, let yourself be.
To walk one's own power in a way that brings us to full bloom despite all strong obstacles to knowing that this is the way to self-realization. To feel that this expresses a deep happiness and gratitude, of " being ," which overshadows everything else, recognizes as unimportant, and is nonsense made of mind.

Katrin  —– 2012