Music has been a theme in my work since 1977.

In the 70s, I played guitar and sang in a band in northern Germany. So, I have had stage and performance experience. Moreover, I was interested in the new punk music that was emerging at the time and saw concerts of this new music at the CBJB music club in New York in 1978 and at the SO 36 music hall in Berlin Kreuzberg.

In its expressive, garish contrasting colours, the painting Guitars of 1979 gives voice to the then prevailing zeitgeist and attitude to life.

The aim was to translate the intensity of the musical experience into equally intense painting, i.e. to visualise an acoustic experience.

Helmut Middendorf