Ulrike Arnold paints with earth, sand and rocks. She travels to remote places on all continents, where she paints in situ, exposed to the weather and the natural forces of the environment. She collects her painting materials and mixes them with a binder to paint her huge canvases. They capture the essence of the places, where she travels.

Her paintings are an open invitation to the viewer to connect to our planet, to trigger an awareness of our coming and going. They capture something of the beauty of the earth which has been resisting the onslaught of climate change and multiple crises. For 17 years, Arnold paints also with meteorite dust, which she gets from a Meteor researcher, she met by coincidence. This material is witness to the origin of our planet in the solar system. Her paintings pay homage to the earth and its place within the cosmos.

Arnold’s paintings can be viewed as a tactile micro- or a macro-cosmos. They preserve and structure a fraction of the skin of our earth from close up while also allowing for a perspective from outer space. They are a reminder both of the beauty and of the vulnerability of the planet we all need to protect.