Karl-Ludwig Leiter goes by the sobriquet Malanda. His work is eclectic, covering a broad range. He is represented here by 15 images. He writes, "Even before I became a Hippie in the early 70's in southwest Germany I wanted to become an artist - since I always loved to paint and draw. Simultaneously with my love for art, my dislike for the 'art market' did grow - styles popular by then I did not want to paint - and styles I painted nobody wanted to see. Nevertheless I kept painting and earned the little money I needed by working as a lumberjack, a gravedigger, or in governmental Kulture archives. I studied with my artist friends, in art galleries worldwide, in nature, with sex drugs and Rock 'n Roll. "Out of the blue I had not the slidest longing for trying to be somebody special anymore - therefore I completely stopped doing traditional artworks for almost 20 years. By then I enjoyed having a decent livelihood as a freelance graphics and product designer, leading a small but fine studio and enjoying even more my still not-being-dependent-and-influenced by the 'ins-and-outs' of the art-market.

"Approximately three years ago I started to paint again! I use an Apple computer, a graphics tablet, Photoshop and Painter. Most of my art is extremely detailed - I have been and still are interested in brilliance and luminosity - in the archetypical patterns, in surfaces of nature, in the shine behind the obvious perceptions - following some principles of the Viennese School of Phantastic Realism and some of the early Symbolistic artists (Dellville, Moreau, Gaudi, etc.). Aldous Huxley, Choegyam Trungpa and Friedrich Nietzsche influenced me deeply as well as Donald Duck and the Marx Brothers.

"I paint because I enjoy doing it. Some paintings have a message - others not. Which one - the open minded watcher may find out in any way it pleases him or her. I have many different subjects and styles - and try neither to accept nor to reject ANYTHING."

Karl-Ludwig Leiter's Autogallery 2022 exhibit