Karel Witt (Swiss, 1947)

Born January 8th, 1947 in Ostrava, Moravia (for. Czechoslovakia) on

grandfather's (Josef Dobes , accomplished portrait & landscape painter, survived 6 years of Sachsenhausen concentration camp mainly while being allowed to part-timely paint (with Josef Capek)) studio sofa (first scent of terpentyne!). My jewish grandfather Zikmund (lawyer, Senator, italian honorary consul) is a Shoah victim .

Defecting to the West (1950) with parents (via Nürnberg, Paris to

Sydney :first 3 public school classes). 1956 back in Ostrava due to father's (lawyer) unsuccessful adaptation to outback life . 1965 Gymnasium Abitur (emphasis on Math., Physics). 1967 Dentistry dropout (always fancying drawing, my first full-dimensioned colour Images come into being). September 1968 (after russian invasion) fleeing with wife & parents via Austria to Switzerland (eventually becoming father of daughter & son, recently grandfather).

Since 1970 IT – Programmer, working mostly on mainframes in various programming languages, systems, databases, etc. ; 1985-94 on a freelance basis, out of business since 2004.

This part may be seen as a mission statement & attempt to explain my motivations :

My artistic background is basically self-taught.

Influenced by & early perception of Dada philosophy, first abstract paintings (Kupka), Expressionism, Surrealism (Magritte), the post-war american Beat generation & POP-Art.

Despite assuming that it inevitably leads into a long-distance runner's loneliness, attracted to individual, wayward, nonconformist thinking .

Abandoning the catholic church in 2000 due to massive discomfort following my research on the diasporical fate of jewry (also private interest in grandfather Zikmund's life & times).

Needless to say, the unflattering results of my research

(centuries of persecution, pogrom numbers suggesting a time-spread Shoah, '33 Catholic church Concordat agreement, voyage of the USS St.Louis, Evian & Bermuda Conferences, concealing & suppression of the Vrba/Wetzler & von Otter reports, reduction of immigration quotas to Palestine, etc.) have influenced my artwork decisively & flow into my images in a unconventional manner, reflecting my offbeat, mainstream-diferring position . Although I try to set my retro-artwork to rest (visits to Dachau '82 & Auschwitz '05), the obsession still recurres.

The difficulty of unveiling (with artistic means) the complexity of the issue is overwhelming, nevertheless dada's inherent impertinence seems to provide many options (text integration & image names with contradictory synonyms ) .

Stylistically my images try to catch the viewer's eye thru colourful performance & conceal possibly discomforting details (it often takes a sharper second look to discover the unpleasant) .

Content-driven, my artwork can be seen as story-telling with a belated personal involvement or indicating an open-end rather than event-illustrations (in the image-output timetable a 2:1 relation between theme preparation & painting procedure may be realistic).