As the son of the painter Karin Kneffel, whose artistic breakthrough was closely connected to large-scale paintings of fruit, I consciously revisited this motif in my own work. At the same time, it was important for me to distance myself from it and develop an independent artistic language. This led me to set the fruit on fire. What interests me is the tension between realistic painting and surreal content. The fruit appears to be burning intensely while its outer form remains almost untouched. I am fascinated by this paradoxical interplay: something familiar shifts into the impossible without completely losing its sense of realism. For me, the fire also becomes a symbol of separation and transformation. I work with motifs that are both personally and art historically charged, while attempting to place them into a new and independent context. In this way, a field of tension emerges between origin, individuality, and staging.