Ulrich Haug

Sheets, blocks and cubes of paraffin, concrete and pigments – the materials Ulrich Haug uses for his migmatites, erosions and sediments, for the series *Schichtweise* and *Erinnerten Orte*, could not be more diverse or contradictory. And yet they bear such a striking resemblance to one another. Alongside concrete sedimentations with varying textures, we also see structures of flow: coloured streaks and frozen droplets that grow like icicles in underground lakes and eroded cave passages. Precise cross-sections offer insight into layers, comparable to the annual rings of wood. White-blue clouds of mist and faded soot-black permeate the earthy grey and brown.

The viewer experiences a complex feeling arising from a mixture of regret and emotion. It is the acceptance of transience, elevated to an aesthetic sensibility, like a wistful melancholy at the loss of things we must let go of. It is the aesthetic of a quiet joy, which is inevitably linked to sorrow and which allows us to perceive the world more intensely and to enjoy it. The Japanese have an expression for this: to see true beauty in the transience of beauty.

- Betha Maier-Kraushaar