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In the art gallery “Can Berri”,
in the little village of Sant Agustí, until the 30th
July, we can admire an exhibition of a splendid selection
of paintings done by the international German artist Hagen
Voss.
In this exhibition we can see over thirty
oil paintings. Most are landscapes and illustrations of the
nature of Eivissa.
The compositions look like “collages”
(I took them as collages until I went closer and I had my
glasses on).
There are also some still-life paintings
and portraits, painted in different styles, but all elaborated
with an impeccable technique, with a proper use of the colours
and the light. They are very realistic but at the same time
also full of artistic sensitiveness and a subtle, ironical
humour in which one could guess - in some of them, especially
the portraits - the roots of the German Art-School.
It was the owner of “Can Berri”
gallery, Gastão Heberle (see Artists on Ibiza (Eighteen)
in Weekly Edition 069 of 22nd June 2002) who arranged our
first personal meeting, Gary and I with Hagen Voss. This happened
last Monday at midday at Renate and Hagen Voss’s house
in the South of the Island, near “Es Cubells” in
Sant Josép.
Hagen Voss was born in Sondershousen, Germany,
in 1935. He studied at the “High Art-School” in
Berlin, where he passed his degrees. Voss also did courses
on directorship and the architecture of exhibitions and he
worked for several years in different towns in Germany with
his job as an Architect and Director of Art-Exhibitions. He
also passed his degrees in other Art-disciplines, such as
Graphics and Sculpture. All his professional life has been
deeply involved with the creative world of the Arts.
After a few decades of successfully organising
art exhibitions for a good amount of artists in different
art galleries, and also being responsible of other art-events,
Voss decided to start producing his own art creations and
organise his life as a productive and creative painter.
Then, Renate and Hagen started to travel
abroad, to the sunny Mediterranean countries, looking for
the ideal place to work and live.
They arrived for the first time in this
Island around the middle of the 1960s and the first impression
of Eivissa was deep and very favourable. But it was not until
the last years of the following decade (after visiting and
living in quite a few Mediterranean islands, Elba, Sicily,
Malta, some of the Greek islands and Northern Africa) in 1978
that they finally bought a plot of land and built their own
house here.
When I asked him why they chose Eivissa
from all the alternatives they had, among all the places they
had visited and lived, Hagen answers with a loud and clear
voice that sounds very convincing, but also with a slightly
ironical smile, like someone who is saying something so obvious
that it shouldn’t be necessary to even mention it: “The
light”, he said.
“And the people; the kindness and style
of life of the locals”, adds his wife, Renate.
Their house was built looking to the South,
about one kilometre away from this natural altar, a hundred
metres above sea level.
It is on the cliffs that form the bay of
“Es Cubells”, from where the entire island of Formentera,
our little sister, can be seen, away on the horizon, from
the top of the roof that they transformed into a terrace.
It’s where they also built Hagen’s studio - not
a very big room built on top of the house, with just a big
sky-light, that transforms the white walls of the room as
if it was an open-air studio.
Further away, past Formentera, the horizon
line disappears, the sea reaches Heaven and the sky sinks
deep in the open sea, all in a big explosion of light, especially
at this time of the day, two in the afternoon with a wild
Sun shining. Not even the smallest cloud is in sight. One
doesn’t need to see the African coast beyond, to be able
to imagine it, to feel it, with its mirages as well.
Inside Hagen’s studio, looking at his
work, we can understand better what the light means to his
paintings of the same local landscapes, done under several
different lights: the morning twilight, a ray of winter sun
crossing the stormy clouds, illuminating the almond-trees
in blossom; the peaceful and colourful sunsets; even the Moonlight,
sailing by “Es Vedrá”, leaving a wake where
the plankton shines and the stars reflect, all seen through
a subtle veil that makes the scene more intimate and mystic,
a moment to keep deep down in the heart.
From this studio, Voss has prepared his
material for more then eighty exhibitions, individual and
collective, the great majority of them in Germany, but his
art-works are part of private collections all over the world.
By the end of our meeting, Gary wanted to
witness this moment by taking a photograph of Hagen with me
by his side.
So I put my arm around him. Maybe it was
a little bit too familiar for the German mentality, but I
trust that Hagen and Renate have been here long enough to
know that what I really meant by the gesture was to confirm
our acceptance and welcome into our culture, into our world.
It was as if we were, somehow, good old
friends.
All Pictures Courtesy
of Hagen Voss
José P Ribas
josepribas@liveibiza.com
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