Zu Gast ist diesmal Maris Rauch – Künstlerin, Illustratorin und Entwicklerin des „Volanismus“. Schon bevor die Aufnahme überhaupt startet, verbinden uns Technikhürden und eröffnen ein erstaunlich ehrliches Gespräch. Maris erzählt, warum sie Kitsch und Kunst nicht trennt und weshalb in ihrem Leben alles untrennbar mit ihrer Malerei verwoben ist. Eine Hausparty, eine Kündigung und ein radikaler Neubeginn führen sie endgültig zur Kunst – autodidaktisch statt klassisch, denn eine Kunsthochschule kam für sie nie infrage.

Wir sprechen darüber, was Volanismus eigentlich bedeutet und warum ChatGPT es überraschend treffend beschrieben hat. Es geht um Zigaretten auf Sushi, Tampons wie Blumen und Hoden an Wasserhähnen – Bilder, in denen Absurdität, Ekel, Schönheit und Ernst zu einer kraftvollen künstlerischen Sprache verschmelzen. Maris zeigt, wie Social Media für sie Werkzeug, Bühne und Kampfzone zugleich ist: Reaktionsvideos, Misogynie und digitale Machtstrukturen prägen ihren Alltag, ebenso wie Bedrohungen, Anzeigen und fehlender Polizeischutz – der Preis der Sichtbarkeit.

Trotzdem bleibt ihre Kunst tief emotional und ambivalent: Ironie und Ernst existieren für sie nebeneinander, weil es beides braucht. Und sie erklärt, warum gute Kunst Schmutz braucht, welche Momente ein Bild wirklich stark machen und weshalb Arbeit, Mut und Urvertrauen oft weit wichtiger sind als Talent.

In dieser besonderen Crossover-Episode spreche ich mit Britta Kadolski und Saskia Wolf, den beiden sympathischen Moderatorinnen des Kunstpodcasts „Kunst & Knackig“. Ein lebendiges Gespräch über Kunst, Podcasten, Leidenschaft – und die Realität hinter den Kulissen.

Wir erzählen offen, wie wir alle zum Podcasten gekommen sind, warum Monologe für uns ein No-Go sind, und weshalb lockere Gespräche der beste Weg sind, Menschen für Kunst zu begeistern. Britta und Saskia berichten außerdem, wie sich die beiden über Social Media gefunden haben, was sie an Kunstpodcasts lieben – und was weniger.

Natürlich geht es auch um meine Arbeit im Secondary Market, den Podcast-Alltag zwischen Ruby, Pferd & Kunstwelt, und warum der Schnitt unser gemeinsamer Endgegner ist. Dazu sprechen wir über Authentizität, Stimmen, Social Media, Monetarisierung – und die Frage, welche Künstler:innen wir am liebsten einmal interviewen würden … sogar solche, die nicht mehr leben.

Ein ehrliches, humorvolles und tiefes Gespräch unter drei Frauen, die Kunst lieben – und darüber reden wollen.

In this episode, painter Valeria Duca opens up about her artistic evolution — from a prodigy in Chișinău, Moldova, to an established artist based in Oslo. She recalls her first art sale at just fourteen, when the Romanian Minister of Youth and Sports bought one of her paintings, marking the start of a lifelong calling.

Valeria talks about her early self-portraits that captured depression and healing, her politically charged work on the war in Ukraine, and her recent focus on memory — fragmented and fluid, just like our thoughts. At the Werkstattwoche, she experimented with repetition, composition, and the tension between control and chaos.

This conversation moves through childhood ambition, artistic frustration, and the beauty of imperfection — reminding us that creativity often lives between stillness and emotion.

In this episode, Brazilian performance artist Renan Marcondes shares how dance, visual art, and philosophy merge into his powerful, durational performances. Trained in visual arts but drawn to movement, Renan discovered performance through a mix of accident, curiosity, and mentorship — and has since made it his medium for exploring vulnerability, death, and the human condition.

During our talk at the Werkstattwoche, he speaks about daily discipline, the physical endurance behind eight-hour performances, and how grief has become part of his creative language. His grandmother’s voice, birdsong, and even silence find their way into his work, transforming loss into ritual and presence.

We also discuss his poetic new project — a performance staged at a small wooden bus station with no buses. Here, Renan explores gestures of waiting, hugging the emptiness, and finding meaning in stillness. It’s an episode about the art of being present, in every sense of the word.

In dieser Episode erzählt die in Iran geborene Künstlerin Niloofar Monadian, wie sich ihre künstlerische Sprache zwischen Malerei, Installation und Medienkunst entwickelte – und wie das Schreiben für sie zu einem Weg wurde, sich selbst zu verstehen. Von frühen Zeichnungen, inspiriert durch Cartoon-Karten ihrer Kindheit in Teheran, über ihr Kunststudium an der Universität Teheran bis hin zum Masterabschluss in Marburg – Niloofars Geschichte ist geprägt von Disziplin, Vorstellungskraft und Selbstreflexion.

Während der Werkstattwoche schuf sie ein großformatiges Gemälde, das auf den ersten Blick abstrakt wirkt – doch bei näherem Hinsehen offenbart es eine Vielzahl fragiler, machtloser menschlicher Figuren, die sich zu einer kraftvollen kollektiven Form vereinen. Es ist ein visuelles Sinnbild für Einheit und Verletzlichkeit – dafür, wie individueller Verlust in gemeinsame Stärke verwandelt werden kann.

Dieses Gespräch erkundet Kunst als Erinnerung, Melancholie und Methode – und zeigt, wie selbst das Schreiben von Briefen an sich selbst zu einem Akt künstlerischer Klarheit werden kann.

In this deeply personal episode, Iranian artist Hanie Soltani shares how science led her to painting — and how painting, in turn, became her way of understanding life. After studying cell biology, she turned to art to reconnect with emotion and material, discovering freedom in color and canvas.

Her figurative works often depict women — not as statements, but as mirrors of her own empathy and perspective. During the Werkstattwoche, she arrived after a long and difficult journey from Tehran, finding calm in the flat northern landscape of Germany and translating that serenity into her art.

This conversation is about courage, transition, and the quiet strength of staying true to oneself — even when life demands reinvention.

In this episode, Nigerian photographer Bade Fuwa opens up about how photography found him — not the other way around. His first artistic image happened by accident, yet became a turning point in how he expresses emotion and connection. Bade talks about working through grief after losing his mother, exploring beauty in everyday life, and finding creative balance between solitude and social connection.

At the Werkstattwoche, he photographed models with animals, leaves, and discarded materials — creating a quiet statement about coexistence and respect for everything around us. His process is intuitive, instinct-led, and deeply human, showing that art doesn’t need technical perfection to carry emotional truth.

In this conversation, Spanish artist Lorena Ruiz Pellicero — known for her conceptual photography and installations — explores how vision, humor, and subconscious thought weave through her work. From her project Antes de Dormir(“Before Sleeping”), inspired by half-awake dream images, to her current video installation about the act of blinking, Lorena reflects on how perception and memory shape what we call reality.

During the Werkstattwoche, she turned the basement of a farmhouse into a hypnotic video-mapped space filled with blinking eyes — a meditation on attention, overload, and the quiet rhythms of being human. This episode invites listeners to slow down, blink, and see differently.

In this episode of How is the Art scene ticking? I talk with Nigerian-born, London-based artist Ken Nwadiogbu, who pioneered Contemporealism, a contemporary form of hyperrealism that merges lifelike portraiture with political, cultural, and social narratives. Ken shares his journey from studying civil engineering in Nigeria to becoming an internationally recognized artist, and how a single encounter with hyperrealistic drawing changed the course of his life. We explore how he coined Contemporealism to define his practice, his relationship to photography as both a tool and an archive, and the central role of storytelling in his work. The conversation touches on migration and identity as recurring themes in his art, the way visa struggles and bureaucracy inspired reflections on freedom of movement, and his global career plans that span London, New York, and Asia. Ken also speaks about balancing family expectations with the pursuit of art, and why he believes humanity and hope remain vital in politically turbulent times. A dialogue about art as activism, the tension between realism and abstraction, and the power of painting to speak across borders. 

In this episode of Wie tickt die Kunstszene? I talk with Brazilian artist Julio Vieira about the question of what it means to paint landscapes that are both rooted in memory and anchored in the present moment. 

Our conversation traces his journey from São Paulo to international exhibitions and the development of his ongoing series Metalandscapes. We dive into the intersections between everyday streets and art historical imagery, the tension between memory and photography in shaping his compositions, and the central role of color balance in his artistic process.

 Julio also shares what he has learned from showing his work in New York, Chicago, and Rio – and why the interpretations of his audience often surprise him.

A dialogue about painting as a mirror of the self, about the interplay between figuration and abstraction, and about the global journey of a Brazilian artist. 🎧