Circle of Peace

14.08. – 25.09.2022

Exhibition & Participatory Painting Performance
Christkönig Church, Krumpendorf, Austria
7 August – 25 September 2022

Circle of Peace began with a simple thought: peace cannot be created alone.

On 7 August 2022, I invited around forty people to join me in a collective painting performance at Christkönig Church in Krumpendorf. Together, across several large sections of canvas, we created a circle approximately five metres in diameter.

The performance took place following a mass and was preceded by texts, meditation and a spiritual preparation led by Hans-Peter Premur. This created a moment of concentration before we entered into the act of painting together.

I was interested in the circle as an archetypal form and in the immediacy of calligraphy — in a gesture that happens in the moment and cannot simply be repeated or corrected.

But instead of making this gesture alone, I wanted to share it.

Around forty individual movements became part of one larger movement. Different hands, different energies and different intentions came together in a single form. Layer by layer, the colours of the rainbow created the Circle of Peace.

For me, the resulting work is not an illustration of peace. The act of creating it together is the work.

Peace cannot simply be observed from a distance. It requires participation, attention and the willingness to enter into a relationship with others. In Circle of Peace, I wanted to create a situation in which this idea could be physically experienced.

The monumental circle became the central work of my subsequent exhibition in the church. I presented it alongside large-scale paintings and sculptural works, including my inflatable Angel Wings, which visitors could approach and experience interactively.

The exhibition opened on 14 August with a concert by Ukrainian and Russian musicians. Their presence added another dimension to the project and extended the idea of Circle of Peace beyond painting into music, encounter and shared experience.

For me, Circle of Peace exists somewhere between painting, performance, ritual and social sculpture. The church was not simply a space in which I exhibited artworks. It became part of the work itself — a place where people could meet, participate and leave their own trace.

Peace is not something one person can create. It begins in the act of creating something together.