The practice of drawing trains perception and sharpens the view. Anyone who explores an object by drawing penetrates into the depths of its surface and illuminates even the smallest details. The draftsman's inquiring eye directs and delegates the execution of the object rendering to his finest instrument, the hand. He studies the object and at the same time observes how it transforms under the hand into an image on the surface of the drawing sheet. There is something magical about this process for Ulrich Moritz. It is the happiness of forgetting himself in the surrender to the subject that he experiences while drawing. The drawing activity itself is more important to him than the result - a meditation deepened in the visualization of things, enclosed in a space made up of eye, object and hand.  

 

Moritz takes his subjects from nature. Her always surprising wealth of shapes, colors and structures, which no imagination can surpass, inspires him and challenges him to draw closer to her. The natural history interest also plays a role. As a historian, he is familiar with the collaboration between science and art, which was practiced well into the 19th century and which accompanied and visually enriched classical natural history. Even if it is not his intention to resume and continue this tradition, the fascinating attention to detail of the natural historical art of drawing - an indispensable prerequisite for its scientific usefulness and its beauty - serves as a role model for him.  

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The imagery of the drawing is different from that of the photograph. The mechanism of recording depicts unconscious. With all the "photographic" accuracy and fidelity to the object, the draftsman creates an image in which every line he draws and every hatching he makes is an expression of a decision. His product is permeated with consciousness, every detail that he traces or fades out, the result of an action. This brings something different into the picture, an excess that distinguishes what is drawn from the flawless image. This other is present in all pictures; the viewer perceives it at first glance. And yet it is difficult to grasp, defies definition - and remains the artist's secret.  

 

Drawing the way Moritz does it takes time. After the draft made with graphite pencil, he works with colored webs of lines and hatching, overdrawing these over and over again with the pencil, to depict his motif gradually. Working on a drawing can take weeks, but the time spent remains tangibly in the picture. Ulrich Moritz's art thus also presents an alternative to the mass production of images that are installed everywhere and triggered at the click of a finger in a fraction of a second, the omnipresence of which floods the media world today.