drawings

At the beginning of his artistic working, up until the mid-1980s,

Dietrich Grabas was led by an intensive processing of the

felt German guilt for war and genocide in the first half of the 20th century and an examination of the individually varying impositions of a non-free society - his personal and problematic life in the system of the real existing socialism of the GDR. For this Grabas used the charcoal drawing - appropriate to express outer as well as inner gloom.

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During this first creative period, Dietrich Grabas also immersed himself artistically in the world of clear lines and structures. 

With pen, pencil and ink he studied his direct environment -

his own family, but also strangers in East Berlin, the nature - especially

trees and animals. But also his impressions about certain social grievances and feelings of inner loneliness he visualize with these techniques - even in small sketches - with impressive intensity and

lingering emotionality.

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