The Peepul series is part of the complex of works based on a true story

With the series The Peepul, Sonja Feldmeier presents new, unconventional pictorial inventions. In undefined spaces, biomorphic figurations leave neon-colored traces; embers glow and sparkle in front of flickering star clusters framed by ornamental nerve bundles. The large-format pictures present themselves to us as autonomous works. Yet also they are part of a complex of works called based on a true story, which also includes the short film The Peepul Tree.

The background of this group of works, which reaches far into different realms of content and media, is Sonja Feldmeier's journey to the Himalayas. In the North Indian city of Haridwar she witnesses a spectacular tree felling. The artist stays on site for a week, recording the strange, disconcerting event with her video camera. She travels alone, verbal communication with the tree fellers is not possible. With this material Sonja Feldmeier first works on a cinematic realization. As an echo of the situation and her experiences on site, she creates sound portraits of all the actors in the action together with the film composer Vojislav Anicic, thus giving them a non-linguistic, individual presence.

In the darkroom of the artistic process, her work on The Peepul Tree develops and branches out into the three-dimensional and painterly. For the first time, Sonja Feldmeier uses synaesthetic perception as a direct resource for her artistic work. The artist dedicates herself intensively to the color-spatial echoes that a counterpart awakens in her. By focusing on the fluid, fleeting character of the synaesthetic impression, she develops visual "portraits" of the protagonists of the event. With The Peepul she creates, as it were, „introspective views" of the protagonists of The Peepul Tree. In this way Sonja Feldmeier finds adequate forms for an experience in which inner and outer images fade into each other. (Sibylle Ryser)

>> Link publication "based on a true story"
>> Links The Peepul Tree, Kompositionen (audio):
1. Iltab
2. Bablu
3. Pinstripe