Tell us about your childhood – how did it all begin?
I come from an art and advertising family. Both of my parents were visual artists and painters who also worked in advertising. Starting in the 1970s, my mother worked with numerous major figures and companies in the industry, including David Ogilvy and the Ferrero family, and set several benchmarks in advertising. She also designed notable album covers and tour posters, connecting her visual work to the world of music. As a young art student, she even met Salvador Dalí in his studio in Spain during a group study trip. Around that time, she met my father, who also moved between painting and advertising.
This natural overlap of art, music, and advertising shaped me from the very beginning. As a child, I was fascinated by Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, and Jean-Michel Basquiat – and we even met Basquiat in person at an exhibition opening in SoHo. I was equally drawn to the surreal album artwork designed by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell of Hipgnosis for Pink Floyd, and captivated by Jean-Paul Goude and his striking covers for Grace Jones. And then there was the completely different visual world of street art and graffiti, featuring artists like Dondi, Futura, and SEEN. So from early on, I was moving between art exhibitions, advertising agencies, music, and street culture in what felt like a very international world.
You grew up between different worlds. What was that like?
We moved frequently between the US and Europe – sometimes living in Miami, sometimes spending months in New York’s SoHo, and at other times returning to Frankfurt, Germany. For me, it was a colorful mix of my mother’s exhibitions, visits to MoMA, countless galleries, behind-the-scenes insights into advertising agencies, but also block parties, graffiti crews, and the emerging pop culture that later became known as hip-hop. It was an open world between music, art, and advertising that left a strong mark on me.
How did you discover hip-hop culture?
In 1982, I watched kids from the Bronx dancing in the streets of New York – and from the very first second, I was hooked. The sound, the moves – I wanted to be part of it right away. Since I had already practiced floor exercises at age six or seven, breakdancing came naturally to me. Many of these moves were just being invented back then – and I witnessed and helped shape their development firsthand. All of this happened without parental supervision – it was pure freedom on the streets. Graffiti was part of it too, and of course I picked up a spray can myself. Once, our crew of 10–15 kids even got caught red-handed and arrested – I wasn’t even 14 yet. Because I was so young, they let me go. That period left a deep imprint on me: loud music, dancing, and street art weren’t hobbies – they were a way of life.
And how did DJing come into play?
Back then, everything was still brand new. You had to hunt down records one by one, and in the early ’80s only a few rap records came out each month. I wanted to scratch and mix like Grandmaster Flash, so in 1984 I started with two turntables. My first public DJ gig was in 1985 on a school campus. A year later, I was already spinning in GI clubs and at hip-hop jams – often while still underage. Nobody asked for an ID back then. I quickly developed a feel for spotting new sounds early, testing them, and introducing them to audiences – an instinct that later opened the door to the music business. My childhood was on the streets; my youth was in the clubs.
What did you achieve musically?
After various band projects and recording sessions, I co-founded the label Overdose with friends in 1993. The sound shifted more toward club music and trance – at a time when the world was craving more fuel for its techno and house parties. And we delivered that fuel. With Overdose, my goal was always to balance underground coolness with mainstream appeal while continuing to experiment and drawing on my hip-hop background. A 1995 chart entry in Spain with Scot Project marked our first commercial success. More labels followed, along with collaborations with artists such as Nina Hagen, Afrika Islam, Tyree Cooper, Vanessa-Mae, and Malcolm McLaren. Many productions received Gold and Platinum awards, with high chart placements in the UK, Germany, Scandinavia, and other countries – something we’re still proud of today. I shared concert lineups with Whigfield, Erick Morillo, and Emmanuel Top – life couldn’t have been more colorful.
After music, you returned more to the world of your family – how did that happen?
The connection between art and advertising was always present in my family. After the end of my intense music phase around the turn of the millennium, when Napster popularized the MP3 and almost overnight reshuffled the entire music industry, I gradually gravitated back toward that world: first with photography, then increasingly with traditional media work. With the digital transformation of media and advertising, that field became incredibly exciting too – and step by step, it developed into my own artistic practice, with more elaborate portrait photography, retouching, compositions, and everything that comes with it.
How did you eventually return to art?
I don’t like to look back too much – of course I remember those times fondly, but for me, the present always means moving forward. As the music industry continued to shift throughout the 2000s, I focused increasingly on photography and advertising. It was almost like a challenge to reinvent myself without relying on old connections. My family background, my experience as an art director for cover designs, my previous experience in photography, music video shoots around the world – all of this, combined with memories of my childhood in an art-centered family, gradually led to my own artistic practice. I’ve realized that I feel most fulfilled when I can express myself creatively – that has become very clear to me.
How would you describe your art?
My works move between photographic reality and surreal dreamscapes. I’m interested in where reality ends and illusion begins – and in how our perception of beauty, identity, and authenticity is constantly changing. What in our world is still real – and what isn’t anymore? Familiar images and aesthetics return in altered forms, while the artificial increasingly becomes part of what we perceive as natural and believable. “It looks cool. But what exactly am I looking at?” – those are the kinds of questions running through my work.
What’s next?
I’m working on several series at the moment. For me, art is a game between reality and fiction – and I’m looking forward to seeing how far these worlds can expand.
This interview was conducted by Sophia Blake in Fall 2025.