Life is short, art is long

OUBEYs life took an abrupt and brutal ending 15 years ago on 2 August 2004. He was sitting unsuspectingly in his smart car by the side of the road when a 40 tonne truck came up behind and without breaking smashed into him at 90 km/h. OUBEY did not survive the impact. The man with whom I’d spent 21 wonderful exciting years, with whom I’d shared so many thoughts and feelings, that man I was so close to and with whom I lived in such harmony was no longer there from one moment to the next. And his dream of exhibiting his pictures again, after 12 years of withdrawal and seclusion, looked irretrievably lost. Was everything now over?

No. On the very next day it became clear to me that the end of his life for me marked the beginning of a new period in which we would continue to be together but in a very different way. I accepted OUBEYs death but I wouldn’t accept that his death also meant the end of his art. Only how and through whom should his art live on and continue to work its magic? To bring an artist still unknown, an artist no longer living whose work was still to be discovered, to the light of posthumous public attention, without putting his pictures up for sale – who apart from me would be prepared to embark on such a venture? I didn’t wait around hoping that someone might turn up who would do it but answered the question myself by starting to get to work. I hadn’t the faintest idea where this first step into the future would lead me. 

Through highs and lows

The first year was a rollercoaster ride of feelings. The shock sat deep. Yet the moments of great pain were followed by ever longer periods of joy as I busied myself with him and his art. And also with all those things we had done and lived through in our time together. But even when you accept the death of someone you love, you still need a great deal of time and strength of mind before you can really understand that the person you love will never again come through that door. In the time together that was given us, OUBEY was the man with whom I spent nearly every day of my life and with whom I was connected by a most intimate symbiosis.  

It also helped me a lot that I never raged against fate, never asked why he had to die so young and so tragically. Such questions only lead into a dark pathless void because there never can be an answer to them. 

An ending that also contains a beginning

Instead of this I was determined to do what OUBEY would have done if he’d been around to do it – which was to offer people the chance to encounter his art. 

I had no idea how this would work out but I was certain that I would find a way. I knew that despite everything we would still share a common future together, at least for as long as I lived. And I was prepared to do everything within my power bring his art to the world and make people all over the world thrill to his art. 

Because I was absolutely certain that an encounter with his art would be a deeply rewarding  experience for people all over the world, one that would  and give them great pleasure as well as some valuable new insights. So I began to travel, taking his pictures to people all over the world. It was an amazing voyage of discovery – both for the people who encountered OUBEYs paintings and for myself too. And it is far from over. 

I would be very happy to have you travel with me on this very special journey  – in my free e-book ‘MINDKISS. Following OUBEYs Tracks’.