The last time artist Ditha De Rablo was featured here was exactly four years ago, a time that could now be referred to as the “pre-pandemic days.” Ditha was going professionally by Judith Rabl back then and she was on quite a roll. At that point in her career, her paintings had been displayed in galleries in Berlin, Vienna, Venice, and Zurich, to name a few cities, in addition to being featured at the 20th Art International in Zurich in 2018.
Since then, a lot of things have changed for Ditha. The pandemic was a setback for her, as it was with many people, especially those who work in the arts. However, Ditha made the best of that “down time” to continue creating and developing her skills as an artist. As she explains:
The coronavirus lockdown really hit me and I had to deal with a lot of things because galleries and exhibitions were suddenly closed. So I painted and drew a lot. I drew 999 drawings and at the same time I dealt with my depths and constructed my sites. Of course, a lot of things came up. I’ve had to dabble in online marketing and I’ve also learned a lot about NFTs (Non-fungible tokens), too. This year again, I have one of my exhibitions in Rome in a gallery on Vatican soil. Also in Paris at Louvre Carussel, where I got an art prize as well. Actually, a lot has happened. I have an art academy where the famous painter Professor Marcus Lüpertz attended a painting course.
When I asked why she made 999 drawings, rather than an even thousand, thinking there might be a significant meaning to the number 999, or reason she stopped just one drawing shy of an even thousand, Ditha replied; “Because a sheet of paper was missing in the drawing pad, and I found it funny to leave it like that.”
Besides her artistic endeavors, on October 1st, Ditha took part in the 2022 International Speaker Slam in Masterhausena, Germany. At this event, participants compete before a panel of judges and are given four minutes to tell a compelling, personal story. Ditha was the winner of the audience award with her theme “Confidence in Art.” According to the German news website News8.de: “The Romanian-born artist succeeded in rousing her audience to veritable storms of enthusiasm at the Speaker Slam. She thus won the audience prize in the Speaker Slam, which is decided solely by the volume of the audience’s applause. With her storytelling from her own life, the artist revealed her most vulnerable side for the first time. She told of some of her numerous strokes of fate, how she mastered them, and how she nevertheless never lost her creativity.” The author of the News8.de article went on to say of Ditha; “According to her conviction, despite all the scars and strokes of fate, there are sources within us that give us strength. She describes it as a primal force and life energy that gives us confidence. This power is also reflected in her works, which can be found in all major metropolises worldwide.” In Ditha’s own her words:
In Romania, my mother, a member of a sect, became pregnant with me. She tried everything to abort me. I am so glad that this did not work, otherwise I would not be able to tell my life story here today. She left me alone in the hospital. However, thanks to my great-grandma, I got a home. It was part of my everyday life to spend a lot of time at the cemetery and to visit the grave of my great-grandmother’s son. Every day we attended at least three funerals. In the meantime, I played among the graves. Until I was five years old, I saw more corpses and mourning people than I did children’s faces. And yet I am so attached to life. When I was five, a fourteen year-old boy abused me and told me, ” If you tell anyone, you’ll go to jail because it’s all your fault!” And yet I am so attached to life. At the beginning of school, the horror in my life really started. My great-grandmother became ill and my education was taken over by my grandmother, who was a member of a sect. She trained me like an animal, tortured me for hours until I fainted. She said I was a disgrace before God, a spawn of fornication. And yet I am so attached to life. In 2002, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A man kidnapped me and held me for one and a half years. And yet I am so attached to life. Often I am asked: “Ditha, how did you manage through all this? You must have been saved by an angel!” I don’t know if an angel saved me, but one thing I do know, a paint brush saved me and I filled my scars with colors. Art saved me, painting saved me. Otherwise, I would not be here today, alive. Art saved my life, I don’t think I would even be here today without it. I filled my scars with colors.
The hoop skirt Ditha wore for this shoot is what one would wear under a baroque dress
and it features some of her drawings that she had sewn in herself.
At left is Ditha on the red carpet last month for the 2022 Presseball Augsburg. Right: At the 2022
International Speaker Slam in Masterhausena, Germany. (Photo by Dominik Pfau)
At the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolbermoor
With her work entitled; “A Pig Saved My Life.” Depicted is famous German motivational speaker and author Mike Dierssen,
who underwent a life saving heart operation in which he received a heart valve from a pig.
Find out more about Ms. Ditha De Rablo and her artwork at her new official website as well as her other sites and social media pages.
About the author
Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, Chris flirted with the music business there and in Nashville before joining the U.S. Army and serving in South Korea. He remained in Asia for several years afterwards, teaching English, traveling, and covering the regional entertainment scenes. Currently in a mindset between Seoul and San Francisco, besides Idol Features, you can also catch his writings in the print edition of the monthly magazine, Effective.
