Jan F. Welker

When laughter can be heard from windows ajar on the first floor,
when now and then a paint brush is held into the air to compare colours,
then you can be sure our dear Jan. F. Welker is at home –
our official artist, father of three and accepted and respected freethinker.

Human beings, figures, who fade away in oil, re-appear, being scratched from where they were hidden - under various layers of paint. They overlap, superimpose - ask for attention. These are the ones who are the most precious
to him. “What is the matter with the portrayed? What makes them tick?
What moves them to emotions?” One need not know everything, he says,
and fathoms his characters at the same time. “These portrayed humans are the very reason for my work, and sometimes the ‘primary coating’ – in its literal meaning.

An effective connections of private and public life is his computer centre, a
virtual reality. He beams his projections into different rooms of his studio, enhances photos by painting them over.
Like a dancer in the staccato of his digital camera he throws himself into his work to be completely absorbed by his art.

While climbing up the steep staircases of his huge studio, one becomes almost a piece of art oneself. One recognizes oneself in the pictures. Touching the paint spotted walls one feels immediately, this could be one of his pictures. It is the
human being in colour, skin in colour, soul in colour.
One tends to sit down and ask oneself whether this object is a chair. Is that a table? Am I really a visitor ?

Kurt von Suso