Signe Anita Fuchs, geb. Signe Klein
The Quest for the Transcendental
Catalogue of Paintings
Dr. Signe Anita Fuchs is a keen observer and reader, gifted in languages, and has travelled the world since childhood. She has preserved her fascination of picturing the world around her and the world gone by, as well as the world of stories, sagas, myth, allegories and dreams. King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, the Holy Grail, Tolkiens “The Lord of the Rings” and the “Shahname” were all incentives for her imaginative fantasy. Her scholarship days brought friendships with students from Puerto Rico and Iran and from that time onwards she has retained close ties with friends all over the world. Her studies included History and Geography at the University of Vienna, succeeded by the study of art and painting in the master class of Wolfgang Hutter, one of the founders of the Viennese School of Painting of “Fantastic realism”, at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Her extensive and adventurous travels have brought her in and around the Mediterranean through Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, then again through Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. Then followed journeys to the USA, Mexico, the Caribbean, into the Celtic countries of Western Europe and Malta. Her foremost fields of interest lie in contacts and exchange of ideas with the people, their everyday life, their language, history, religion, philosophy, archaeological monuments, museums, literature, theatre, music, dance and arts. This has led to an enormous ethnographic knowledge, further deepened by intensive studies of the literature in selected fields of interest, eagerly followed by studies of philosophies, religions and spiritual ideas like astronomy, astrology, cosmology, the classical pantheons of the Greeks and Romans but also of the Celts, Scythians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Indians, Mongols and Chinese and the related world religions of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, without neglecting the older beliefs of Ahura Mazdaism and Zoroastrism and the esoteric backgrounds like Neoplatonism and Sufism. Consequently her art is transcended with the essence of mythological, historical and religious ideas from centuries long gone by. The artist as a universal scholar of modern times delivers through her oil paintings of old masterly techniques and fine aquarelles, an enormous knowledge in a modern comprehensive interpretation.

1. Magic - Magic is born out of the strivings of man to understand the world in which he lives and to manipulate it. The relation of the unseen world to the visible world and the alternative effects should be recognized. Firstly there exists a vague idea of the unseen world and its relation to the visible world. An image of the energies and structures through which the world is coming into existence from the unseen is constructed. This attempt to look behind the veil to grasp glimpses of the powers of this hidden realm, to contact them and even employ them, and the wish to present them in a figurative form is the desire expressed in the first paintings. They illustrate the endeavour to perceive – to bring to light these powers and to make visible the realms behind reality.

- Oil - paintings: The Other Land, The Queen of the Fairies, The Sea, The Ladder to Heaven, The threatened City, Ishtar , Nemesis, The Tree of Life, The City of Nephrite, The Stairway of Shells, The Ancestress
- Aquarelles : Spring, Summer, Autumn, Moon in Aries, The Blue Bird, The fire in the plant
- Crayon – drawing: The Guardian
- Ink – drawings: The Sorcerer , Phoenix, The Peacock – Fairies, The Peacock- Witches, Noli me tangere , The Woman in the Moon, The Angel from the Western Window, The Island of the Blessed, Golden Mary and Pitch Mary , Humming Bird, Jungle , Peacock, Tropical Bird.
- Etchings: Little Root Wife, The Sun - King, The Big Crossing , The Tree -Fairies

2. Cosmology– Since the beginning of time man has sought order – a background pattern in the world and in the cosmic space in his surroundings and the wish to transform it into a logical meaningful system. Every culture and its corresponding philosophy emphasises a special aspect or view of these observations. All these cultures developed diverse myths of creation and ideas of how the elements and life came into being. Sky, earth, sun and stars came to be understood as foundations of existence and to gain special meaning. This led to intensive observations which brought about the development of calendars, architectural constructions and astronomical calculations of admirable accuracy. These in turn were related to plants, animals and men and elaborate cosmologies were constructed. The fascination with these lead here to a series of oil paintings which are inspired by dreams, astrology and closely observed nature-depicting aquarelles.

- Oil paintings: Emerging of the Black Moon, The Parting of the World, Aquarius and Gemini, Cycle of the Twelve Zodiac Signs, The Children of the Sun, The Children of the Moon, The Mask of Mars, The Gate of Saturn, On the Way, Leo and Virgo, Bob Marley, The Gardener, The Harbour, Palmtree, Study of Palmtrees.
- Aquarelles: Melangeloi, The Moon - Goddess , Caribbean Impressions,
- Crayon – drawing: The World

3. Mythology– Mythologies emerged from man’s striving to find an answer to the many problems of human existence: The origin of existence, of the various religions, of the gods, of the peoples, their conflicts, their migrations, and the development of cultures. The lives of outstanding individuals appear to be embedded in emphasized traditions. Transformations of epochs and moving stories create images of strong expressions. In an illuminated world which is nowadays only contacted with great difficulty, fairies and dragons, griffins and other fantastic entities are brought to life. This world is very vibrant in Celtic mythology with its rich lore of sagas and poems. Precious archaeological findings make it possible to advance nearer to the ideas which gave rise to these stories. Goddesses and gods from long ago, sacred places and long-forgotten rituals remind us of the archetypal scenes of a sunken world full of splendour, which is once again brought to life in pictures illuminated by intense colours.

- Oil paintings: “The Burning Tree” , cycle “The Celtic Tarot” (22 major arkana) , cycle of “Celtic Sagas”: The sagas of the Mabinogi: Math, Gwydion, Rhiannon, The magic cauldron, Abred (Arthus), Annwn (Merlin) ; Irish sagas: Cuchullin, Diarmuid and Grainne, Gwynwyth (Danu, Bríd and Lugh) ; The five elements: Earth, Fire , Air , Water, Ether;
- Aquarelles: Cycles of “The Five Elements”, cycle of “The Spirits of the Trees” (30 pictures) , Goddesses (10 pictures) , “Celtic Gods and Goddesses” (6 pictures) , The World, Ventry Bay, Dingle Bay 1 and Dingle Bay 2
- Ink-drawing: The Harper.

4. Mystics – All research in the field of magic, cosmology and mythology leaves in the end many questions regarding the significance of creation unanswered. In spite of all perceptions it will be obvious to man that there are limits to all these; that he actually really does not know, from where he originates, what he is supposed to fulfil in this life and wherein he will wander afterwards. At this moment he starts longing to confront himself directly with the mystery behind the veil of the unsolved secrets and to achieve real contact. The search in the outer world did not bring any result in this respect, thus his search becomes introspective. There are emerging as many images as before. All emotions, ideas and realisations come to light in symbolic forms. In the personal inner world are to be found the counterparts of love, beauty and life – and strife, grief and death. But the exploration of one’s own self brings the chance to find out more about other beings and in overcoming the opposites to advance nearer to the one source of origin. Having freed oneself of all those ties, love on a higher level can lead one in the right direction. All the old mystery-religions were born out of that yearning, like the Magi of old Media, the Mithraism, the old Ahura Mazda sun-religion the worship of the great goddess as Anahita, Ishtar, Kybele, Isis and many others, the Greco-Thracian mystery cults (Orpheus, Dyonysos) and countless more. There are still traces of these in our times, to be found in the sects of the Yezidi and the Yaresan and in the old Sufi and Dervish orders of the East, where love and longing for reuniting of the Origin are the path towards the all-embracing unity of spiritual existence, the All in everything. The intensity of these feelings, the magnetism of these miracles form the background for pictures from the mysterious world of old Iranian, old Kurdish and old oriental beliefs.

The art of Signe Anita Fuchs embraces numerous oil paintings, aquarells, ink drawings and pieces of literature.   2012 the historic novels „Das Alte Volk“ and „Mit Harfe und Schwert“ have been published by Kindle Edition on www.Amazon.de

- Oil paintings: The four directions (4 pictures: North, South, East, West), Mam and Zín; Farhad, Shirin and Khosrow; Mithra and Anahita; the Cup of Jamshid; Kawa and Faridoun; Fire-temple; Simurgh.
- Aquarelles: Persian Dancer; Turkish Dancer; Cycle: “7 Princesses” (7 pictures) Neptune-Princess, cycle: “7 Angeles” (7 pictures) ; Peacock-Angel; cycle: “Archaeological aquarelles (9 pictures); cycle: “Dreams” (4 pictures).