my recent mudras
Series of 12 photographs (each 42x28cm in a lead glass frame), 2023

The work shows 12 photographs of my hands – six of one hand and six of both hands – in different poses and compositions. I have framed each individual photo print in a lead glass frame that I made myself.

For me, the work expresses different moods and states of tension through the respective hand positions. They are gestures of inwardness, withdrawal, resistance, prayer, hurt and hurting, clinging and tensing. They describe my search for attitude, position and orientation, for touch, for protection, as well as confrontation and resistance. Here, the hands are both subject and object.
In the title, I refer to the spiritual practice of mudras, which originates in Far Eastern spirituality: concentrated hand positions that convey certain psychologically and spiritually positive aspects to the practitioner, such as balance, stability, intuition, patience ... In this work, the gestures are only partially recognisable as mudras or are already unrecognisable, and instead of expressing and effecting positive aspects of balance and the like, they are motivated by a tense tension. For me, the work also represents a search for spiritual orientation, but one that first seeks to become aware of its constitution and to embody it.