Living in southern California's dry and sunny climate for 15 years had a significant impact on how I paint today. Ideas flow from my surroundings. I grew up in Germany, lived in Berlin for a while, spent a year in southern France (Montpellier), moved to L.A. and then Malibu. Back in Germany right now.
C O N T A C T (in California)
Ute Merbitz
P.O. Box 2536
Malibu, CA 90265
U.S.A.
Email: ute@power.net
The Barn
A place to use in summer.
A swallow nest on the wall.
Inside the old horse stable.
BEAUTY IS IN THE MEDIAL ORBIO-FRONTAL CORTEX OF THE BEHOLDER
"A region at the front of the brain 'lights up' when we experience beauty in a piece of art or a musical excerpt, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust. The study, published July 6 in the open access journal PLoS One, suggests that the one characteristic that all works of art, whatever their nature, have in common is that they lead to activity in that same region of the brain, and goes some way to supporting the views of David Hume and others that beauty lies in the beholder rather than in the object."
"However, particularly interesting was that activity in another region, the caudate nucleus, found near the centre of the brain, increased in proportion to the relative visual beauty of a painting. The caudate nucleus has been reported previously to correlate with romantic love, suggesting a neural correlate for the relationship between beauty and love."