Ephemeral Texts

The Tree of Wishes and the Mandala are gone

Two days ago, I received terrible news.

By mere chance, I discovered
that two of my most beloved artworks
were destroyed in Bali years ago,
and no one had told me.

They barely lived for half a year after completion
before they were erased.
I am still in shock.
Not angry, not sad, but in total shock.

My body still responds with nausea,
a twisting stomach, shaking, as well as paralysis,
and I have moments where I cannot breathe.
My heart stops, my stomach turns into a hole
and I can’t get a single breath into my lungs.

The rational part of me can’t stop wondering
how someone would just trample over something
created with so much devotion, love, care and time.

I get it that not everyone likes the same.
I get it that another would desire change.
What I don’t get is that one wouldn’t communicate
and return what isn’t theirs to the original owner.

What does it cost to ask?
What does it cost to have respect?
What does it cost to honour
the life and work of another?

It is one thing if art falls prey to time.
— I knew that those murals wouldn’t last forever.
It is another when it’s brutally taken out of this world on a whim.
Weeks of work carelessly taken down in a few hours.

And I muse, is human nature always going to remain like this?
»I come, and I conquer.«
»I don’t preserve and protect, but I destroy.«
Does the desire to own consume our goodness?
I wonder.

I’m still processing.
Witnessing the breaking of my heart.
It breaks in waves and layers.
I’m not halting the breaking.
I’m not trying to close the deep rift this is causing.
But feeling it until it doesn’t need to be felt anymore.

I don’t fight against what has happened,
I integrate the transformation it brings.
I see the gold in it, despite this excruciating pain.
I observe what is working beneath the visible.

Also, I am astonished once again about
how deeply I am interwoven with my work
and how the loss of a piece for an artist seems like a death,
releasing an existential pain.

I see the good coming from it,
feel the spirit of the artwork returning to me,
sense the creativity that will be born from it.

But it’s not the time yet to step over the grief.
It’s still time to feel it.
Until it doesn’t ask to be felt anymore.
This is love.
Of the work. Of the process. Of the self.
Of the human experience. Of life.

And so I am sitting here with the pulsating wound in my heart,
letting it bleed as long as it needs to.
Breathing the pain in and out, until it will settle —
and have brought to light a new me.

17.03.2026

The Tree of Wishes, hight 2,50 m,copper & silver acrylics

Handcrafted mirror pendants for the Tree of Wishes
If you live in Bali, near Penestanan, Ubud, please help me to find and retrieve those pendants as they are precious mementoes.

The Mandala with Butterfly, dimension 100 cm, golden acrylics