Our Story

The story of Creative Compassion is linked to our mission to enhance resilience in individuals and groups

This includes to promote art empowerment by means that foster artistic self-reflection, self-healing and self-empowerment

One of the many possible ways to do this is to approach museum art. Professional Fine Arts pieces are created from an artist's understanding of aesthetic harmony and balance. Looking at Fine Arts pieces can be a step towards healing. In the therapy field this effect has brought about a special approach called Receptive Art Therapy

To cultivate my own understanding of visual aesthetics I visit art shows of galleries and museums on regular basis. A trip to five exhibitions in the culturally vibrant Ruhr Region of Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, is my 2023 highlighting

Among others I visit a special exhibition on Expressionists at Folkwang Museum Essen and the permanent exhibition at the Center for Persecuted Arts Solingen. Both exhibitions show master pieces that have been labelled as degenerative art during the 1930s and 1940s

Although not all exhibits are speaking to me (some of them do not resonate at all) I am deeply touched. The art shows introduce me to unknown and stunning pieces of Expressionism

'Keep up the positive and withdraw from despair having the last word' - this is what I get from the exhibitors as timeless message. Their art makes me feel something polyphony inside sounding more than just one voice. From all the voices I get, the voice of compassion for creative life is the strongest

Creative Compassion - Our Story. Art Journal page January 5th, 2023, Intention Setting

with artwork of ©Eric Isenburger (1902-1944), Portrait of a Dancer,1928, Citizen Foundation, Center for Persecuted Arts, Solingen/GER

Persecuted arts are witnessing the power of human creativity in the midst of destructive and life threatening circumstances. They hold a promise of resilience

This promise makes me research the work of other persecuted artists in Baden-Wuerttemberg/South Germany. I visit the Art Museum Reutlingen where the art work of Adolf Hölzel (1853-1934) is exhibited

In Adolf Hölzel I find a progressive and innovative artist and art teacher, a pioneer of modern arts and a pioneer of intermodal expression who strongly promoted women's artistic voices

In 1933 art work of Hölzel and his students (and later colleagues, The Hölzel Circle) was to be exhibited at the National Art Exhibition, but the exhibition was cancelled due to National Sozialist seizure of power

The art work of three members of the Hölzel Circle was officially declared as degenerative: The art of Ida Kerkovius, master student and long time assistant of Hölzel (banned in 1933), the art of Lily Hildebrandt, also a master student who chronologically documented Hölzel's lectures (banned in 1935), and the art of Max Ackermann (banned in 1936), a painter and designer who's artwork was already exhibited at the State Art Gallery Stuttart at that time   

Another member of the Hölzel Circle, Maria Lemmé who had been studying with Adolf Hölzel and published his ideas in her book "Thoughts and Teachings", was deported to Terezín in 1942 (official date of death March 28, 1943). Almost all of the art of Maria Lemmé had been destroyed except pictures she privatley had given away

Finding out about the members of the Hölzel Circle I visit the Stuttgart Hölzel House to find traces of their lives and their art, presented in a permanent exhibition. I feel intrigued by their work and cannot other but love their heritage

I decide to take Adolf Hölzel as artist of reference for Museum based Creative Compassion practice as his body of work of the 1920-30s is abstract, whereas the work of the Hölzel Circle is semi-abstract or figurative

Abstracts offer freedom of expression for the practitioner using Fine Arts pieces and receptive-active arts engagement as tools to build Relational Empathy from aesthetic feeling. Abstracts are interactive: It is the viewer, not the artist, who gives meaning to them

Adolf Hölzel | Abstraction II | 1915 – 1916 | State Gallery Stuttgart

Finding peace and calm in pastels - Self Focusing with Hölzel Art

Forwarding the arts through modalitiy shift - Dancing the painting

Watch the Adolf Hölzel performance at State Gallery Stuttgart

What is your story with the arts? What artists have an impact on your life?

I love to hear! Come and share your story!

Sources of Creative Compassion practice: Imagination, arts and body

Learn about Life in the Arts