A Film about the Artist and Composer

Ildefonso Aguilar, who lives and works in Lanzarote, is considered an important representative of the ecology movement on the island. Aguilar expresses his closeness to the island landscape in his paintings, musical compositions and architectural works. His themes are the four elements fire, water, air and earth. In addition to acrylic paint he uses natural materials such as volcanic ash or sand.

Between 1963 and 1968, he studied art in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. In Arrecife, he taught painting and drawing for six years. Since his main field of oil painting on canvas did not satisfy him personally, he devoted himself increasingly to a lifelong passion, photography.

Over time he found his way back to painting: he had developed a new technique in which he edited photos with sand, and created surfaces with glue and grains, giving a new structure to his paintings. Soon he tried it on wood, for example the wood that has been traditionally used for shipbuilding, and in this way developed the first sand images which have a unique expression due to their own characteristics and precision.

Through his five trips to Iceland, he is now inspired by the nature of the largest volcanic island of the earth, which, despite its northern location has much in common with his homeland, especially the geological origin.

Today Ildefonso Aguilar is one of the few artists who uses the sand-technique in paintings and photographs. By many layers of fine sand, he gradually creates a landscape that reminds the viewer of Lanzarote or Iceland.

Dan Hepperle works in the seclusion of a village in the Eifel, creating paintings with white as the main color, which requires calmness, concentration and a lot of time. He tackles the theme of light, which in its purest appearance manifests itself as the color white and points towards something non-physical, metaphysical. With endless variations he constantly creates new moods around the phenomenon of light. Space is a second important theme for his work and is reflected as a line that enters the scene, playfully dancing or more strict and straightforward. His paintings are vivid and yet centered, they apparently show little but actually they transport a lot.

Gabriele Musebrink's creative process begins inside as a silent dialogue, until the moment comes and an idea emerges about the form, materiality and texture of the subject and asks her to take action. The process of painting, which then usually turns out explosively, can be seen as a continuation of the previous process. The technical procedure is secondary to the inner process.

Gabriele Musebrink lets herself be guided entirely by the material of the colors, she gives space to an internal development process, so that the painting materials can help to give shape. The impasto paint application creates a sculptural, relief-like surface, reminiscent of desert earthy landscapes and erosion-torn areas, which is also caused by the colors through the use of soil, sand and minerals. Inspired by nature, her art is about what is behind the phenomenon. This creates a powerful, profound and yet joyous vitality in her works.