Your hand luggage is often specially felted. If Anja Grafe-Friedrich wants to check in at the airport, it can take longer. Because the security forces usually don’t know what to do with the watercolors and metal boxes, she says with a laugh. The artist from Karlsfeld has always made it onto the plane. She always has her painting utensils with her, she estimates that she has traveled to around 90 countries in her life. During her vacation she spontaneously unpacks the folding stool and draws, for example, mosques with magnificent domes in Iran, mountain landscapes in Ethiopia or the Arc de Triomphe in Paris covered by Christo. She will soon be showing around 120 of her architectural watercolors in the gallery art workshop in Karlsfeld at her exhibition “50 Years – 50 Countries”.
“The former GDR is probably to blame for my thirst for travel”
Actually, it was supposed to take place on her 50th birthday, but then Corona came, says the now 51-year-old. It is part of the Karlsfeld Art Circle and it is customary there to also put on an exhibition for his milestone birthday. In the case of Grafe-Friedrich, the topic was quickly clear: travel, of course. “The former GDR is probably to blame for my thirst for travel,” says the artist. She grew up in Halberstadt in Saxony-Anhalt, and family vacations were limited to countries in the Eastern Bloc, the Czech Republic, Poland or Lake Balaton in Hungary. She simply could not come to terms with the travel restrictions in the GDR.
She had no idea what it was like in other countries, she could only guess what it was like in African countries from animal documentaries on television. But that was over after the turnaround. Anja Grafe-Friedrich’s first journey was to southern France, where her mother had friends. “I’m pretty much done with Europe now,” she says. She has also traveled to the continents of Asia, Australia, North America, South America and Africa. In terms of nature, she found Hawaii and Iceland the most beautiful because of the volcanic landscapes, in Iran and Uzbekistan she was fascinated by the Islamic architecture with the domes and colorful mosaics and in Ethiopia she was enthusiastic about the warm-hearted people. Once she unpacked her folding stool in front of a mountain landscape to paint. Ten people immediately gathered around her and wanted to know what she was doing: “It got difficult to draw,” she laughs.
Anja Grafe-Friedrich simply painted the windmills of Olympos on the Greek island of Karpathos with just a few colours.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
During a trip to Tuscany she captured the market place of San Gimignano artistically.
(Photo: Niels P. Jørgensen)
This happens to her again and again when she unpacks the folding stool. She strikes up conversations with journalists and other tourists who want to know why she is sitting there and painting. When she drew the wrapped Reichstag in Berlin, passers-by became curious and bought her watercolors – with this she financed a trip to the USA. Today it’s not so easy for her, she doesn’t actually sell her works, because the painted memories of her travels mean more to her than the “little bit of money”.
Through painting, she experiences her travels even more intensely
Traditionally, she draws with a fineliner and then watercolors with a brush. The architect, who works as a project manager for schools in the Munich building department, prefers to paint architecture: She sits in front of older buildings, ruins and excavation sites to capture them on the drawing pad. It usually takes about a quarter of an hour, but it can also be used for larger pictures times three hours. As a result, they experience what they see even more intensively when they travel, because they look very closely, for example how many rows of windows does the building have or what can be seen in the vicinity of the sight? She still takes photos on vacation: “It’s something completely different – a different medium.”
She has already planned her next trip. She will be discovering the US west coast with her family in the summer. National parks are on the list, as are Los Angeles and San Francisco – the painting materials are of course in the hand luggage.
The opening of the exhibition “50 Years – 50 Countries” begins on Friday, July 1, at 7 p.m. in the Kunstwerkstatt gallery. Additional opening times from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. are on Saturday, July 2nd, Sunday, July 3rd, Saturday, July 9th and Sunday, July 10th.