“Fabian feierte ein phantastisches Fest mit seinen phönizisen Freunden” (Fabian celebrated a fantastic feast with his phoenician friends) was the title of one of the first serious paintings I created. That title turned into Fabian Phantastisch (Fabian Fantastic) or, a bit more humble: Fabian Pha. – an artist was born.
In 1995, soon after I became student at the University of the Arts, I had an exhibition titeled “Bunte Bilder” at Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin. This exhibition might be forgotten by history, but it was the beginning of my career as a painter. Soon I had a gallery that sold my paintings. The gallery was located “Unter den Linden”, right next to Brandenburg Gate. I thought I had made it!
At that time I also bought my first computer. The guy who was running the gallery said to me: “I can make a real painter out of you. You have to go to all the parties I send you, the rest of the time you have to paint. You have to get a cool car and you have to stop playing around with your computer.”
Well, I did not stop playing around with my computer.
I produced a lot of paintings between 1995 and 1999. I still paint sometimes, but I never got a cool car and became a real painter. Nonetheless I have a artist name: Fabian Pha.
In 2001, right after I had spent a year sitting behind my computer for the making of my final project at the University of the Arts in Berlin – the thing that later became KORSAKOW – I was invited to do an exhibition at ezwei gallery in Berlin. It was an online and offline exhibition (in 2001!) the exhibition is still online. The title of the exhibition was SUPER LEBEN.
After one year inside the digital world I somehow felt confused. The digital world is real, the world of flesh and blood is confusing.
In 2005 I was asked by EDIT-Magazine to develop a series of Illustrations. Of course, they could not pay me. At that time I had moved to New York together with my friend Jim Avignon. He describes this time like this: “While I explored the city, Florian was sitting at the computer.”
He thought I am flirting with my girlfriend in Singapore, in fact I was working on the illustrations bellow. They should have made me famous as an illustrator. Instead EDIT did not like them, they never went into print.
My girlfriend in Singapore left me, too.
Erziehung, 2017
