Artist: Cornelius Quabeck

This much I know

Memories can be funny. When we were kids my brother and I would occasionally fight over memories. It would usually be that one of us claimed to remember a joke, a good line, that he came up with and the other would fight him for the copyright. „It was me first. It was my idea to give Tante Ursel the nickname, not yours!“ To this day I’m pretty sure I was right but I fear he equally thinks it was him and I’m too old now to bring it up again.

When I was in my late twenties I decided to organise memories, to keep a record and so I started a diary which I still keep. It can make the world a little less confusing. There are other techniques of recording time, manifesting memories. Painting is great for this. The time spent making a painting is stored in the work. When I look at some of my works over the last 30 years they will trigger memories of my life. They are not necessarily connected to the work content-wise, in terms of what the painting displays. It may be that I just remember what I felt like making the painting. 404 is an error code in internet language. You were browsing the web, you knew exactly where to look but then you realise you can’t find it. The content is not where you thought it was. It’s still unclear whether you made a mistake or whether the content’s location has changed. „404 - not found“ is also what it says on the landmark signs in some of my paintings.

They are paintings of Northern California, between Marin County and Monterey, an area of incredibly beautiful nature, a setting for a lot of music and literature that became world famous.

I lived there for a whole year from 2007 - 2008. The last time I visited was in 2025. It was stunningly beautiful, I met wonderful people, old friends, acquaintances. I recognised a lot, some had changed, some was not at all like I had remembered it. Upon my return home I decided to paint this.

P.S. There are also a couple of painted skulls in the show that I threw in for good measure. Memento mori, nil omne, everything is nothing, carpe diem, another way of saying: Yolo!

CQ