A short word about Mathias Schneider, *1975, written by him in the third person.
A life in the spirit of an interest in the works and the activity of other people has led the Offenburg artist Mathias Schneider, in first attempts, according to his own thoughts and ideas thereby, to work out smaller own writings and also some simply held pictures. To this occupation kind he holds continuously.
He also likes to read good old books on existential themes. Thus he occupies himself with some literature from Asia as well as with the medieval reading of Europe from the time of the Renaissance. Esotericism, along with the history of mankind and its religions, have been the main areas from which he has been able to draw something for himself. He constantly looked at and weighted his stock of books.
The works of art of other people have sometimes moved him very much. He often feels a deep significance of such works when he looks at them.
His preoccupation with painting has accompanied him on his paths through life since his early childhood. At the age of 12 at the latest, he started painting with pastels, pencil and charcoal with some artistic interest. Soon after, his mother's watercolor box has also become a permanent part of the equipment with such utensils. Paper was available to him in sufficiently large quantities in the form of cut, lightly tinted sheets from a local paper mill. He often worked in this way.
At the latest when he reached the age of 19, Schneider bought his material for the art thing with his own means. At that time he started painting or drawing again after an almost two-year, energy-sapping abstinence from it. In the process, colored pencils, oil paints, ink, as well as many better types of paper were newly added to his supply of materials. He also worked with soapstone for a while.
Since he was set on such artistic work, he really took enough time for it. So he practiced a lot at that stage of his life. Some of the paintings have been preserved. Even if you would like to see it in the early works that they were created by a beginner without the guidance of a teacher or art educator, he exhibited them online on the Internet and did not keep them hidden from you. This reinforces his backbone. These works continue to enrich his fund of his own pictorial ideas to this day.
Parallel to this, his writing activity has emerged. It grew out of a drive that was very inconspicuous at the beginning. He wanted to document his experience in practicing and rehearsing asanas, which are postures from the field of hatha yoga. He did so after feeling prompted to do so by a book by Ngakpa Chögyam on the 'Journey into Inner Space'. Moreover, he has also been prompted elsewhere to engage in writing his own texts. For instance, he has been asked to create a diary. Schneider soon reached the limits of his linguistic possibilities.
When he recognized the difficulties that applied to him, Schneider made it his task to at least be able to describe in words what had characterized and moved him in his existence up to that point. Courageously, he soon wrote a hundred pages of text, sometimes orderly in himself, sometimes chaotically impulsive and restless in his own behavior. For many years he then tried to improve his pronunciation and his own writing with the help of speech formation.
In doing so, he benefited somewhat from his former school education. His basic knowledge of the languages Latin, French, English and German as well as the large amount of books he had read certainly contributed to his ability to do this. Also such conversations with intellectually clearly more mature personalities probably did not hurt anything, which pleased Schneider afterwards nevertheless.
Some of the good things gradually became more tangible to him during the writing process than they had been before. He understood some things correctly for the first time. Thanks to his marked tendency to reflect, Schneider was also able to extract something further from many things, which was not insignificant. The circle of his actions has closed again and again with him.
This work with the German language has continuously helped him to orientate himself in a spiritual-structural way. In doing so, he reorganized himself from time to time. In this way he has been able to create something of his own, which he is now able to read again and again during his hours of 'devotion'.
With the continual reading of such texts, something has been set in motion in him that defines him. He now documents his own existence with linguistic means. In doing so, he gradually takes note of his basis for life.
With the increasing goodness of his own texts, he has succeeded in freeing himself somewhat more from the dominance of other people's activities and goings-on. In the meantime, he has already succeeded in spontaneously distancing himself from such things that once influenced him without any desire of his own.
Nowadays, thanks to the support of some of his friends, he has already achieved an improved starting point for his artistic cause. People stand by him and encourage each other with their own goods. Many a stone has already started rolling and has contributed something to the improvement of the everyday situation. Sometimes one's own success is still tested on smaller targets and one's own development of strength is tested by the fact that one is working on something that gives pleasure.
Nowadays, Schneider likes to write about such things as they have already occurred here in his card index in a certain abundance. In doing so, he makes a point of ensuring that what he creates is original.
A fundamental preference for people with an upright attitude of mind is given to him. Everything else in his existence, as he knows, results from such an attitude. This is so good for his cause.
Following a suggestion from outside, Schneider has compared his creations with the most recent sensations of his mind and has found many an expression for what has spontaneously appeared in him in the form of impulses. Instead of spontaneously rejecting his works, he has rather accepted them and let them count for something good.
Although much of it has been little "square", he has done that. In this way he has taken up and preserved the flavor of his imaginary world. Coming from a painting with strong colors and with clear forms, he has explored a nuance of it in the course of the years, furnished and also explored many different ways of creation.
Giving a clear expression to his feelings has structured his inner world, but also left something empty in its original state, as it has been. Not everything originating from us humans would be equally malleable. Some of it has also been light. So it is to be preserved meanwhile as it has been, so that it can be what it is. That will have to be implemented to some extent consistently, so that one exists in the way before other people with his views.
That's where Schneider got his bearings in his work. A show of his works can lead to a reflection of the consciousness of a person. Every individual approaches the same thing with different feelings. Meanwhile, in accordance with his own will, Mathias Schneider has standardized his things by perceiving and recognizing them as a whole for the whole, even if they have not always succeeded sufficiently well.
A life path of man should serve to be walked. There is no need for anyone to strut, but there is also no need for anyone to stumble, just to move forward on such a path. With modesty one soon gets used to his good success. It took such a one for us.
Everybody should have basically the same for himself. From this it can be determined what will be achieved by a person from his own drive. Nobody has needed something for himself, what has not been important for other people in a certain way.
There people are more or less mindful in dealing with themselves and their happiness in life. The good ideas of a person are gladly taken over by others, because they have been practicable. Meanwhile, everyone can learn something from their fellow human beings. A society has already provided us with role models for our own existence. We have perceived it in such a way and have corresponded to the good thereby, as we have got to know and have experienced it. Meanwhile we have wished that it would be enough to know the own way well, in order to attain a certain security for it.
With this now the small essay has ended, which was written down from the view of an apparently outsider about the life and the person of the 'Art-Trash'-activist Mathias Schneider by himself.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)