vita
Magdalena Starck-Burckhardt was born in Holzminden, Germany in 1946. She has been painting seriously since 1985 and is self taught.
After school in Hamburg, she completed an apprenticeship as "Kaufmann" and started work in an arts- and crafts shop.
She married and moved to Hamdorf in Schleswig-Holstein where she raised a family.
There she created a small studio in the attic of the family cottage where she began to paint and experiment. She has since gained acclaim in her community having exhibited her work in numerous local galleries and banks in the Schleswig-Holstein region.
Magdalena Starck-Burckhardt describes the development of her art as follows:
"As the eldest sister of five brothers and sisters I was the 'story teller'. As a result I first used story to depict a pictoral world full of bright colours. In my fantasies I saw picture worlds in human form. Faces would appear, but also other forms in contrast to them in a landscape which engulfed them. Only much later in the last decade when painting became my mouthpiece for self expression did I realise that ever since my childhood I had continued to react this way to my surroundings. I had found the medium to express myself.
For me the human face is a landscape, one where hate seethes and love soothes, where wars are declared and peace is celebrated, where pain takes grip and lifeless eyes destroy you, where spirituality opens up and life reveals itself, where heaven and hell reflect each other."