Interview: Raphael Sonnenlicht
Luca Curci talks with Raphael Sonnenlicht, winner of ARTIST OF THE MONTH – JUNE 2021.

I was born in Vienna. Already in my apprenticeship as a pastry chef, I was looking for the extraordinary. As a journeyman’s piece, I didn’t make a cake as usual, but a chessboard. As far as I can remember, I crossed boundaries early on. Boundaries that were established between the known, the familiar and the recognized and separated from the unknown. So I was always a pioneer in my thoughts and actions and many friends said even then that I was way ahead of my time. But for me what I was doing and thinking was completely normal.

LUCA CURCI – What is art for you?
RAPHAEL SONNENLICHT – Art ist the opportunity to make something visible, from the great unconscious and to make it available to people.

LC – What are you currently working on?
RS – Especially now in my garden, that is a great way to balance things out, the direct contact with nature is very valuable and important to me. Then I can freely devote myself to a new object again.

LC – What is your background? What is the experience that has influenced your work the most?
RS – The pentecoast meditation 1999 in which I received the visual and energetic inspiration for the GOLDEN SUNS. Since this experience, I have been shaping this vision and I am happy that after 22 years people are still touched by it.

LC – Which subject are you working on?
RS – I never have a specific topic. The most important thing is to be free of thoughts in the silence of meditation, and to receive the energy that is possible for me at the moment and to bring it into shape.

LC – Which is the role the artist plays in society? And contemporary art?
RS – Every Artist has his own special direction. For society, a life without art, would not be possible, which of course includes music, theater etc… The importance of art is best expressed through the saying at the Vienna Seccesion – ” Time its art, art its freedom”. Seen in this way, art changes synchronously with the trends of time. which we can best see in retrospect. There are politically motivated artists who have just as much their justification and importance as any small artist who is simply and modestly creative for himself. But the value of art is always relative and should not be measured by the price of a work of art. For society as a whole, any kind of art that touches and stimulates the people to think about life and its meaning is, in my opinion, the most valuable form for artistic expression. When the viewer of my art is lifted into a joyful higher consciousness, my work succeeded.