I used to walk through Berlin with an etching needle and some sheets of metal in my pocket, and whatever I saw I engraved, directly onto the metal, in dry-point. I did it quickly like snapshots. I could not really see what I was drawing, only the silvery line. I was completely caught in my inspiration, I engraved some lines in rapid speed and could only recognize later on what I had done. In my studio I made prints of it and elaborated them, sometimes coloring them by hand, at other times using sophisticated techniques like aquatint and color-print. Often I was surprised by the result. May be I used that technique because it made all falsification impossible. Drawn so sporadically, my compositions could never be pompous or posed. Engraving in dry-point or etching was a process representing some conflict between the needle and the sheet, some kind of tension, corresponding to the situation in a town split apart.

To see some etchings, click here

To see the new generation of etchings (2014), click here