“Beauty awakens the soul to act. Dante Alighieri is one of many works Petra Greule-Bstock creates based on inspiration from a famous quotation. On Greule-Bstock’s blog, she provides background information about herself and her artwork: “I love to paint with natural pigments mixed and prepared like a meal, it’s like working in a color kitchen. Also I use oil pastels, Chinese ink, well let’s say just all I can find in my studio. I love the sensation of feeling lost in colors, materials and forms. Since I was able to keep a paint brush in my hands for the first time, painting was, still is and always will be necessary for me. It’s impossible living without. I was born in the south of Germany and lived there until 2000 before moving to France/Burgundy. Since 2011 I have my studio in Barcelona. Mostly I live with the feeling: I’m not going through the world but the world is going straight through me. The world, the daily life, people, surrounding, colors, smells, views, buildings, plants… all is impressing me, touching me, forming me. Painting is the way of how the “footprints” of all the impressions entering into my body, into my soul, my brain, my senses can communicate with those who are watching the result. With my paintings I’m offering a sight into the mirror of my emotional universe and it is like a dairy of subconsciousness, left footprints, dreams, . . .”    —Petra Greule-Bstock