LIFE
Thomas Ludwig-Kelley, known as Tom Kelley in the world of furniture-design and formally known as the painter, Thomas Ludwig decided after a long break (provoked by a strange behavior of a Munich-Gallery and the beginning of his design-career ) to restart his activities of painting will be exhibiting the results.
Starting point: Padova !
On February 21st, the first exhibition opens , the first as well in Italy, followed by one in Venezia and another (again in Padova) in April.
TLK considers himself primarily an observer! All those observations after a while want to get out….like forms, compositions,colours,projects, words…..if he would have learned a instrument…maybe even in sounds? Meeting him makes very fast clear, the silence exists, but just when he works like being in trans.
Good for his artist expressions, bad for somebody living in a place like exDDR.
His Travel Notes are not touristic snap-shots, not all his travelling, his transit's, his translocations were caused by his own decision, not all were pure pleasure…..
Not all were short like a typical vacation or comfortable like seen in catalogues of travel-agencies. No matter if we look at the trip with bicycle on the island of Crete, the trips with sleeping-bag and motorcycle in Greece, Turkey, exYugoslavia, or even living in other countries for longer periods, even the ones caused by being in prison of the Stasi (see Wikipedia).
Somehow he developed a mobile home-land, a transportable stage…….In almost none of his paintings you see persons! After all, because he's not making portraits,not even of sceneries.
This topic certainly was born by the fact of feeling home were he came from, not being accepted being part of that, not wanting being part of un-selected groups, backgrounds etc.
Born in a little village of East-Germany he realised long time before understanding all the limits of personal freedom, the cages in which we're born without choosing.
Loosing in young age his mother through cancer, his father through suicide, not being allowed to join a university because of "lacking socialistic personal-development" (he still does not follow any 'ism) he found himself 21 years old, in a Stasi prison, after a adventurous attempt to escape from their trough Hungary and Yugoslavia.
There, despite of being forced to work hard in 3 shifts 7 days a week, he starts writing, drawing etc, after all by being surrounded by many intellectuals prisoned like himself.
All those things have been taken away from the guards, just one tiny poetry lands on very organic ways in the Mauer-Museum on the Check-Point Charly in Berlin, where it's still exposed.
In 1976 the Federal Republic of Germany liberates him after 2.5 years by buying like many years around 1000 political prisoners from East-Germany.Finally he starts to follow his way of committing to Art, to expression, to forms and concepts. He studies in Aachen (living behind the dutch borderline), in Munich at the Academy of Fine Arts.
In lack of sponsors or other supporters he works an array of student jobs; co.pilot of the funeral-car, sales-man for australian wines, delivery-truck-driver, to quote a few. Later after going to the CSULB Long Beach /CA, he discovers wide open spaces, big paintings and the way of deciding for himself !
Long walks in the desert, being exposed to colour-explosions in the same as depressive empty spaces, meeting people from all over the world, not being surrounded be central-european know-at-all's.
First serious exhibitions follow, returning to Germany for rather practical reasons of having there a bit of security of surviving. First place to paint is a old brewery in southern Bavaria, surrounded by grain-rest's all over and wandering rats, heated by camping-gas-bulbs, explodes a maniac activity. Later (the brewery will become a shopping-centre he find thanks to his friend and co-student a new place in a old mill .Step by step the canvas is replaced by the flower-sacks found there (stamped with a swastika since the mill was german army provider during the war. Having his way of over-paint this sad part of the story with a more colourful surface.
The following exhibitions provide good sales, despite : on the end of the money, often remained a big piece of month which had to be managed. Step by strep his activity in the field of Design, later even Architecture starts eating up his time to paint. In all the years of having a modest success , designing chairs sold world-wide , restoring the famous Villa of Michael Thonet
Inventor of industrial chair-productin), creation concepts of a Museum (for chairs) , a ski-station in the alps , several private houses, making Art-Directon for several clients, creating recognised stands in fairs, lay outing entire catalogues, the fire of the painter never extinguished , sometime waking up in the morning , covered by sweat from painting in his dreams all night long.
End of last year, by pure coincidence , some occasions of re-starting exhibitions came along, which he thankful accepted, not being free of "lime-light-feever" even to re-start painting again.