Ralph Lazar

his series began on a kitesurfing trip to La Ventana, Mexico, in 2016. It was a two week trip dedicated to playing on the ocean, but when, after a few days, the wind stopped blowing, I found myself in a tiny, dusty Mexican town wanting to paint, but with no art materials to hand. I went to the local hardware store "Servimateriales El Sargento" and bought a tub of white paint, and a tub of chalk-board paint. I collected cardboard from the recycling pile behind "Ultramarinos Oscarito" the local mini-market, and then went back to my rented beach casita to paint. Soon the layers of characters were building up. I have named the series "The Lives of Others", named after one of my favourite movies, "Das Leben der Anderen" (2006) about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, the GDR's secret police. The notion of "the other" is as relevant to the GDR back then, as it is today to the unknown immigrants crossing the Channel or the Texas border.