BIOGRAPHY

Creative work has always been center to my life. Already at High School I enjoyed art classes best and always looked forward to our weekly lessons. Encouraged and guided by a highly motivated and very sensible art teacher I focused on water color painting and ink drawings during my school days but also was given the opportunity to try my hand at edging, stone carving and sculpting in clay.

Living the better part of my adolescent years in a boarding school which was highly supportive and appreciative of my budding skills as a young artist I continued spending much of my spare time on painting and --playing the violin. After graduation from High School I enrolled at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany to study arts. At this time I started more seriously working on ink drawings focusing on insect illustrations for scientific publications which continued to fascinate me throughout my life.

Realizing however at an early stage how difficult it could be to make a living of art, I decided to choose a different career path which has taken me around the world exposing me to an incredible diversity of cultures and art enriching and shaping my life and my art work of today. After graduating from the Forestry Faculty at the University of Freiburg I took a masters degree in wildlife management at the University of British Columbia, followed by a Doctorate degree from the Freiburg University in conservation ecology (read more: www.goetzschuerholz.com).

Creativity expresses itself in many ways. Although I stopped painting when I graduated from University in 1968 I never stopped bringing creativity to my professional work, especially when it involved planning and designing conservation areas and their infrastructure in countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia . In my spare time at home on Vancouver Island, located at the beautiful West Coast of British Columbia, I continued incorporating art into the design of my house and surroundings, inspired by the large number of artists living in my neighborhood, many of whom I have come to appreciate over the years as close friends.

To satisfy my insatiable drive for creative art while in Germany -half a year we live in Canada the other half in Heidelberg- I paint mostly in Heidelberg where I also produce most of my bronzes.

My artwork would be half the fun without my wife Beate's supportive help, criticism, and appreciation. She has not only a pronounced aesthetic sense but also a keen eye for flaws in my work to be corrected. She never tires of providing welcome advice and actively taking part in the final process of finishing stone sculptures through patiently sanding and polishing for the final touch. A big “Thank you”, Beate, for continuing to enrich my life and my art!