Dieter Nusbaum – “Heimat – Puste”

2025,  Painting, drawing, and screen print on canvas, 90 × 270 cm

In “Heimat – Puste,” Dieter Nusbaum unfolds a panoramic composition that oscillates between observation and imagination, between natural form and metaphysical reflection. Across its expansive three-meter width, the work evokes a sense of still movement — a quiet journey through layered spaces of memory and emotion.

Subtle tones of green, brown, and red form a delicate atmospheric ground, upon which white, diagrammatic lines, plant forms, and translucent symbols hover like fragments of thought. The delicate seed heads and dragonflies suggest the fleeting nature of life and the silent rhythm of renewal. The title “Heimat – Puste” — literally “Home – Blow” — plays on the image of the dandelion dispersing its seeds, merging ideas of belonging and transience, presence and departure.

At the heart of the composition, the faint outline of a rowing boat emerges — both fragile and grounded. This vessel becomes the central metaphor of the work: a symbol of voyage and inner navigation, of moving through time and memory toward an uncertain, perhaps spiritual, arrival. It stands for the human desire to find direction and meaning amid the fluidity of existence.

Technically, Nusbaum masterfully unites painting, drawing, and the finest layers of screen printing into a complex, translucent structure. The precision of geometric lines contrasts with the softness of painterly transitions, creating a tension between control and intuition. Each layer contributes to a sense of transparency and depth — as if the surface itself were breathing.

“Heimat – Puste” is both poetic and contemplative, a meditation on the act of journeying and on the fragile idea of home. It invites the viewer to drift within its subtle spatial rhythms and to experience movement not as escape, but as a path toward inner stillness.