Oscar Wippermann MFA

"In my thesis I dealt with the question what fairy tales are good for and what influence do they have on our memory? I came into contact with them very early. As a child, I learned a lot from fairy tales. They are a collection of experiences that individuals in a group have had over a period of time. One could call fairy tales an early form of empiricism.

Some fairy tales want to warn us of danger. Others want to entertain us and some deal with our dreams and fears. In everyday life there are often events that remind me of fairy tales. Some take me back to my childhood.

My jewellery pieces do not portray a specific fairy tale, it is much more the memory of the diffuse and undefinable impressions that fairy tales evoke in me. When reading fairy tales, many questions come to my mind, of which very few are answered in the story. In dealing with these questions new ones arise.

One example is "Pythagoras at the beach". It is one of a few of my pieces that has a ninety degree angle. I remembered my school days and the Pythagorean theorem. Mathematical formulae also tell a story about how the world should be. But everyone needs a holiday and so I decided to send the Greek scholar to the beach.

Another piece is the pendant "The crocodile does not have feathers". Why do crocodiles not have feathers? Are they simply not close enough related to birds? Or are feathers too uncomfortable under water? Penguins have them too! I reformulate questions like these into titles. It may be that the connection is not immediately obvious. But if you look at the work for a while, I hope that the interplay of material, colour, form and title will give rise to amusing questions for the viewer and make him or her smile. Perhaps the image of a naked crocodile appears before the inner eye. It is the only one in its swimming group that has no feathers and therefore wears swimming trunks."

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