“For me fine arts, specifically for me painting and sculpting, are a medium or a level, on which words end.”
Sabine Kunz was born in Zwickau (East Germany) in 1962. She studied painting and woodcutting and lives in Halle. She submitted her design for a painting in the East Side Gallery shortly before graduating. Her painting “Die Tanzenden” (“The Dancers”) depicts both her joy at the new freedoms offered by the fall of the Wall and a sense of menace.
Sabine Kunz in the interview
In the painting “Die Tanzenden” (“The Dancers”) dancing or moving figures are peacefully dismantling the Wall, allowing yellow sunlight to shine through. The central figure represents the artist herself. The female figure on the far right has a blue flag in place of a head. She stands for readily manipulated opportunists who elbow their way ahead – a constant threat in the artist’s view. In retrospect, Sabine Kunz sees her daughter in one of the other female figures and her sons in the two male figures.
Kunz graduated from Burg Giebichenstein art college in Halle and now works as a painter and woodcutter. In 1990 she painted the picture “Die Tanzenden” (“The Dancers”) on the Berlin Wall. Marking her first opportunity to produce a large-format work in public and a chance to experience the new-found freedom, it was an important milestone to the artist. Kunz’s large-format woodcuts have been widely exhibited.