My name is Luis Zimmermann. I am 24 years old and have been studying fine arts with Professor Thomas Grünfeld for five semesters. During the past four years, I have been working with old advertising posters.

When older advertisements are pasted over again and again with newer posters, I am reminded of how new experiences layer over old ones. These old images are subsequently forgotten.

My focus during the past few years has been to expose these "forgotten" layers; to make the forgotten, as well as the remembered, visible.

Using a cutter knife, I begin by exposing figurative motifs of varying depths from the many layers of posters; the forgotten thus made visible, but in a new context. New motifs emerge; from the original advertisements, only fragments remain. Like a molted snakeskin of our consumer society, old images are stripped away and something new emerges. This torn, weathered surface forms an impressive contrast to the "smooth surface" of society. This surface and its forms become increasingly non- representational.The methods of processing also evolve over time: Cutting, milling, painting and, above all, sanding the surfaces of the posters create veritable landscapes with shifting topographies and colors.

For about a year now, the top layer of my work has consisted of my own original photography, enlarged to poster size and subsequently applied. Previously, my pieces were created by subtracting from the existing layers of advertisements, whereas my newer pieces are created through the

addition of advertising posters and photographic prints. The top photo represents the starting position, a brief moment in the "present". Through sanding, painting, and layering, the present approaches memory until the two appear to converge. Moments that lie years apart merge into a common image, perpetually overwritten with the new and thus unconsciously winnowed. The result is a puzzle composed of both clear images and faded, worn areas of color.

Some of the motifs depict my friends and me during the past year, a time in which we, due to the current restrictions, frequently alternated between euphoria and depression and dreamed ourselves back into our old lives.