Petra Dippold-Goetz
Art is a daughter of freedom‘ Friedrich Schiller Born near Nuremberg, Germany, Petra Dippold-Goetz grew up in the city of Albrecht Dürer, immersed in a rich artistic tradition. Although painting had always been a deep personal passion, it wasn’t until 2014 that she chose to follow it as a calling. One winter evening, she discovered a lifeless white dove in her garden—its blood and feathers scattered in the snow. This haunting moment marked a turning point: from that day forward, art became her way of processing emotion, questioning the world, and engaging with it more deeply.
She went on to study Fine Arts at the Academy of Faber-Castell from 2014 to 2018, refining her technical skills while exploring a raw, intuitive visual language. Her work is inspired by visits to museums across Europe and influenced by Informal Art, particularly artists such as Emil Schumacher, Anselm Kiefer, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline. Petra's expressive paintings blend gestural abstraction with natural and industrial materials. She works in acrylic and oil, often incorporating sand, wood, plastic, or found objects—especially remnants of human consumption. Her fascination with transformation and meaning-making through discarded matter has led to her participation in several Trash Art Festivals, where she also teaches workshops on turning waste into art.
Some of her works are vibrant celebrations of life and beauty. Others carry urgent socio-political messages, confronting ecological destruction, species extinction, and unsustainable consumption. "I see myself as an artist-activist," she says, "wielding my brush not only to adorn the canvas but to awaken the soul."
Petra Dippold-Goetz has exhibited in major art cities such as Vienna, Paris, Barcelona, New York, and Tokyo. Her works are part of collections across Europe, the USA, Singapore, and Japan. She has received several honors, including the art prizes Faces of Peace, Voices of Tomorrow, and Global Art Virtuoso.
Her artistic mission is both poetic and purposeful: to touch hearts, to question, to awaken reason and compassion. In a global context marked by ecological and social crises, her art becomes a call—to delight in the beauty of our world and to take responsibility for preserving it. Each of her works is a “daughter of freedom”: liberated by purpose, yet bound by a deep commitment to insight and care.
Petra, your work has often been described as a “dance on the canvas,” where gestural strokes and chromatic improvisations merge into a choreography of emotions. Could you speak about how this almost performative relationship with the act of painting has evolved, and how you balance spontaneity with intention when you are channeling such visceral energy onto the canvas?
When I paint, I experience it almost as a performance — a dialogue between my body, the canvas, and the colors. After a rigorous academic training, I realized that figurative painting was not truly my path. I wanted to be courageous and free in discovering my own artistic language. As Picasso once said: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” That idea has become a guiding principle for me. I never begin with a plan or prepare sketches. Instead, I allow my emotions to flow directly through the brush, surrendering myself completely to intuition and spontaneity. The gestures are charged with the energy of the moment, and I am always curious to see what will emerge. In this sense, the act of painting itself becomes a choreography — an improvised dance of color, form, and feeling.
At the same time, intention plays a subtle but important role. It is not about controlling every step, but about carrying within me a sense of direction — an atmosphere, a vibration, a truth I want the work to express. The balance comes from listening carefully: to the canvas, to the colors, and to my own inner state.
This process is also deeply connected to my life. As a dentist, I live in a world of discipline, precision, and responsibility. Painting allows me to step into another identity — one that is free, instinctive, and unrestrained. It is in this space of liberation, where control and release meet, that my art truly comes alive.
You identify strongly as an artist–activist, particularly through your trash art and upcycling projects, which carry a deeply socio-political message about environmental responsibility. How do you navigate the tension between beauty and urgency in this context, between creating visually captivating works and simultaneously reminding the viewer of ecological fragility and the ethical imperative of change?
I believe that Trash Art has a unique power to captivate. Viewers often linger longer in front of these works than they do in front of a traditional painting. There is a fascination in recognizing the material, in tracing its previous life and seeing how destruction has been transformed into something meaningful.
For me, the choice between painting and creating Trash or Upcycling Art is rarely a purely aesthetic one. It is deeply connected to impulse and urgency. Sometimes I find a fragment — a piece of plastic, burnt wood, broken glass — and I feel compelled to work with it. At other times, it is the world itself that calls me: hearing about a mass whale slaughter, or devastating forest fires in the Amazon, I simply cannot paint something “pretty.” The weight of those realities demands another language, one that carries both the rawness and the responsibility of the moment.
Having grown up under the shadow of Albrecht Dürer and later refined your practice at the Faber-Castell Academy, your trajectory bridges deep art-historical awareness with contemporary experimentation. How do you see your lineage within the German tradition of painting and drawing, and in what ways does your dialogue with artists like Emil Schumacher, Anselm Kiefer, or Jackson Pollock still inform your painterly language today?
When I was very young, Nuremberg celebrated the 500th anniversary of Albrecht Dürer. The entire city honored its great son with grand events, and all the schoolchildren were taken to the museum to learn about the old masters and the life of artists in their time. For me, that experience was formative — it planted the dream of becoming an artist myself, but an artist of the twenty-first century, speaking in my own language and time.
This sense of lineage has always stayed with me. The German tradition carries a gravity, a respect for history, and a strong material presence. Yet the dialogue with artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Emil Schumacher, and Jackson Pollock helped me to discover my own path, because they showed me that art is free — that no mode of expression is forbidden. Kiefer in particular has been a constant inspiration. Recently, I stood in the Panthéon in Paris before his monumental works, installed there in 2020. They are critical, uncompromising, and deeply moving. They left me speechless, but also reassured me: to keep questioning, to confront, and to remain courageous in my own work.
In this way, my painterly language is built on a dialogue between tradition and freedom. The atmosphere of Dürer’s city gave me my first dreams; the example of contemporary masters gave me permission to break boundaries. I often think of the golden words written above the entrance to the Vienna Secession: “To every age its art, to art its freedom.” That sentence expresses exactly what guides me — respect for history, but absolute freedom for the present moment.
Titles such as The Dance of the Whales, Place of Refuge, or Leonard Bernstein Conducting reveal how your canvases often cross boundaries between the natural, the emotional, and the musical. Do you conceive of your paintings as visual symphonies, where color and gesture function like instruments in an orchestra? And how conscious are you of synesthetic correspondences between sound, rhythm, and the painted mark in your practice?
Yes, I often think of my paintings as visual compositions that unfold like music. Color becomes vibration, gesture becomes rhythm, and the canvas is a kind of score where harmony and dissonance can meet. I deeply admire Leonard Bernstein, because he conducted with the same passion and sweeping gestures that I bring to painting. His intensity and physicality in music feel very close to how I work on canvas—driven, emotional, and always in motion. At the same time, I’m not planning every note in advance. Much like an improvising musician, I respond intuitively to what emerges, allowing spontaneity, surprise, and emotion to guide me. In that sense, each painting becomes not only a visual symphony but also a deeply personal performance—one where the viewer is invited to hear with the eyes and see with the ears.
You have exhibited in cultural capitals across Europe, as well as in New York and Tokyo. In your view, how does the reception of your work differ across these contexts? Do audiences in Vienna, Paris, or Tokyo read your gestural abstraction and activist concerns in distinct ways, and how has this global circulation shaped your own understanding of your role as a contemporary artist?
In the major cultural capitals of Europe I often feel that audiences are deeply attuned to the legacy of art history, and they tend to situate my paintings in dialogue with the European tradition of expressive abstraction. In New York, the response is more immediate and visceral—people there seem to embrace the raw energy, the gestural freedom, and the activist urgency in a very direct way. Tokyo has been a particularly fascinating context: viewers are extraordinarily attentive to detail, rhythm, and surface, and they often notice subtle textures or material choices that others overlook. Experiencing these different receptions has shaped me profoundly. It has taught me that my work is not fixed in meaning but remains open, alive, and relational—read differently depending on where it travels. This global circulation has made me more conscious of my role as a contemporary artist not only as someone who creates objects, but also as someone who initiates conversations across borders: about beauty, fragility, responsibility, and the urgency of protecting our shared world.
In several works, such as Head Over Heels in Love or In the World of Fantasy, one feels a tension between exuberant chromatic intensity and a deeper layer of psychological introspection. Could you expand on how your paintings operate simultaneously as personal confession and universal statement, inviting viewers to project their own inner landscapes onto your abstract worlds?
My paintings often arise from a place of inner urgency, as if color itself were confessing what words cannot. Each canvas carries fragments of memory, emotion, and longing—yet abstraction releases them from the boundaries of my own story. The chromatic intensity may feel exuberant, but beneath it flows a quieter current of introspection, a pulse of vulnerability. In this space, viewers are invited to enter with their own feelings, to let the shapes and gestures mirror their private landscapes. What begins as a personal confession thus becomes a universal language, an open field where intimacy and resonance meet. I see painting as a bridge—between myself and the world, between inner silence and shared human experience.
Your Trash Art projects and participation in events like the UBUNTU Trash Art Festival highlight the ethical dimension of artistic creation, where discarded materials become catalysts for awareness. In an art world often preoccupied with market value and aesthetic refinement, how do you envision the place of recycled, humble, and even “ugly” materials as agents of both beauty and resistance?
In my practice, recycled and discarded materials carry a very special kind of truth. They reflect the traces of our time—consumerism, neglect, and waste—but also the potential for transformation and renewal. By giving these so-called “ugly” or humble materials a new life in my art, I want to show that beauty is not limited to refinement or perfection. For me, Trash Art is a form of resistance: resistance against wastefulness, against environmental destruction, and against an art world that too often values works mainly for their market price. Through the artistic process, these materials gain dignity. They become messengers of awareness and symbols of resilience. In this way, they don’t just participate in beauty—they expand it, because they embody fragility and strength at the same time. ---
Picasso once remarked that painting is an “instrument of war,” a sentiment you have echoed in describing your own practice. In your opinion, what battles does painting still have to fight in today’s global society, be it environmental destruction, cultural amnesia, or spiritual disconnection, and how do your canvases position themselves within this broader field of struggle?
I present my canvases to the world not only as aesthetic objects, but also as a stance: against environmental destruction, against restrictions on freedom, and for the right of art to develop autonomously. Thus, the Vienna Secession quote "To each age its art, to art its freedom" takes on a new urgency through my work: Today, it's not just about formal freedom, but also about protecting the world in which art can exist at all.
Your works often oscillate between impressionistic evocations of natural beauty (In Monet’s Garden, Floral Splendor) and more raw, abstract expressionist explorations of inner states. Do you see this oscillation as two poles of your artistic identity, celebratory and critical, lyrical and confrontational, and if so, how do you navigate these dualities without fragmenting your artistic voice?
Yes, I definitely feel that I have these two poles, and I move between them quite naturally. My work often arises from intuition and mood: sometimes I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the beauty of life, and I want to celebrate it in vibrant colors and lyrical gestures. At other times, I feel a deep worry about whether we will be able to preserve this beauty, and that concern pushes me toward more raw, urgent expressions. I don’t experience this oscillation as a fragmentation, but rather as a rhythm — both joy and fear belong to the truth of our time, and my artistic voice carries them together.
Looking ahead, with projects such as your application for the Arte Laguna Prize and your continued commitment to ecological art, what is the larger vision that drives your practice? Do you aspire for your canvases and activist works to primarily transform viewers on an emotional level, or do you ultimately hope they will trigger tangible social and behavioral change in the way we inhabit and care for our planet?
Looking ahead, my vision remains rooted in a deep desire to connect art with responsibility. I see painting not only as an aesthetic expression but also as an ethical gesture — a way of celebrating the beauty of the world while at the same time warning against its destruction. My canvases are meant to touch viewers on an emotional and even spiritual level, because only when the heart is moved can awareness take root. At the same time, I do not stop at emotion alone. I hope that my ecological works, whether painted canvases or Trash Art projects, can act as catalysts for change — subtle but real shifts in how people think about resources, consumption, and our relationship with nature. Even if only a few viewers carry these impulses into their daily lives, art has already fulfilled its transformative role. Ultimately, I believe the task of contemporary art is to keep asking uncomfortable questions while still offering spaces of beauty and hope. My larger vision is to create works that can resonate on both levels: as poetic experiences and as seeds for a more conscious way of inhabiting our planet.