BERLIN

The walls might be smaller, but everything else is now bigger and brighter in Berlin.., and anyone who tells you that it isn’t as interesting a city as it was before the wall tumbled is either lying, or they’ve simply not been back since – The place is fantastic! I’m sure things have changed – I know things have changed, (since my first visit back in 1994 the place on the surface is virtually unrecognisable), and with change comes a certain amount of grief over the passing of elements which tie in with personal memory, but being in Berlin for the last few days proved to me just how well a city can develop but retain its very own specific identity!


Because it just didn’t occur to me that it’s just a matter of hopping on a train to get there from Warsaw, thanks must be given first of all to Jasz (a good mate and partner of Andrzej who started off as one of my ‘Conversational English’ students), who planted the idea of the visit in the first place – we hoped to go with Jasz a few weeks back, but work commitments meant we had to put it off ‘till last week… And secondly, a plug here for the hostel we stayed at in Friedrichshain, for I must admit to feeling a bit dubious initially about the idea of staying in a hostel for the first time in my life – the thought of sharing a room with six other’s, who may as well have been picked up at a bus stop or soup kitchen for fun, left me cold with the willies; but it was fantastic! People respected the need for sleep and privacy, but overall were exceptionally friendly.

Schlafmeile Hostel is run by Glen, a bloke from New Zealand, who arrived in Berlin over ten years ago and never left, and add the fact that the immediate location vibrates with the kind of feel good factor any community would kill for, the attached bar, also run by Glen and bearing the name of his homeland, dishes up the kind of food both Jamie Oliver and Fanny Craddock would drool over and verges on the ridiculously inexpensive!

The Good Food Guide and the delights of the City aside however, and the main reason we made the trip in the first place was to check out the gallery scene. It didn’t disappoint! And, as luck would have it, after around thirty or so visits to Berlin’s independent best, on our last day I overheard Glen talking about a friend of his who runs what turned out to be possibly the ideal venue for me to make my first and hopefully only needed approach for a show there!

On the way to catch the train home, we popped into Gallery 24 and had a quick chat with the owner. He owns Galleries in Berlin, Paris and New York, and apart from the Paris venue, reckons sales are excellent, and is always looking to take on new artists – a refreshing change from unapproachable London I’ve got to say! So, it’s now simply a case of getting some sort of coherent work and application together… Think my previous out-put speaks for itself, but as you know, the current struggle to find any lucid angle on painting over the last six months continues to-date! The trip to Berlin, along with the sudden urge to reintroduce the figure (already begun with what a rather pious friend of Daniel’s describes as deviant and gay :-) ) seems to have gone a long way to sorting this out however, so, fingers crossed and watch this space!

currently ongoing work