Torsten Schlüter: Almighty white
White is the ultimate invitation to art. White opens up our thoughts and creates scope for them. White is contemplation. White is timelessness. It is the conscious state of the beginning and the the feeling of the end. White is birth and white is death. White is infinity. The white enters and says to the painter: “If you want to, get started – and if not, then I will wait for you, I am at your at your disposal whenever you are inclined to turn to me. turn to me. I am your lover, I make no demands.” And the black? It enters and speaks: “Set off! Let it rip! I open the white, I destroy the white. I show the tasks, manage the scaffolding, the supporting structure and provide orientation. I snatch infinity from white, define the present and create the present and create space and time.” And somewhere behind all this, there is a door, behind which the colors play and wait impatiently for their waiting for their appearance.
Torsten Schlüter: Hiddensee records
Stranded
Circling thunderstorms hammer the roof with downpours. Hot jacket potatoes are steaming in the veranda. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth penetrates the room. The thunderstorms are followed by a hurricane. Wet and raging combine to form a raging ogre. It shaves trees, bushes and hedges. The sea, out of its mind, foams with rage. The power supply has collapsed, the telephone network has been cut, propane gas stoves and kerosene lamps are sold out. We’re in a dead zone anyway. Early in the morning, even the last ferry gives up. Shipping traffic suspended. Robinsonland.
Jewels
An irresistible revelation! The gorse floods the island as a yellow head of hair. And the ox tongue emerges from the sea of meadows. As an ultramarine pearl ribbon, it forms the necklace. Deep blue with a hint of magenta, it attracts admiring glances with its lambent flowers. It’s being wooed, it’s called “plant of the year”. It is flanked by shaggy rattle, horn clover, viper’s bugloss and vetch.
And the sea buckthorn says: “I’ll sting you!”
The well woman needs a pot and a rope, the sea bucket milker needs a bucket and a rope. The sharply jagged bushes can only be bent aside with reluctance. The thorny branches snap back like whips. They spray a fine drizzle of citrus-sour liquid that stings the eyes. Thorny spikes penetrate knees and thighs. They also shoot through the leather work gloves. Some thorn tips are broken off and stuck deep in the skin. “That you think of me forever!” Your hands may ache, but like the gold diggers in the Klondike, who get a rush when the first grains of gold appear, there’s no stopping them. The hands grab the fruit pistons. The fists close. With a slow downward movement, they extract the juice from the berries. The golden-yellow juice flows and soon the orange-yellow thicket is filled with a seductive aroma of rich berries. The abrasive rope with the bucket lies like a chain around his neck. It fills up more and more. Then it dangles heavy and sloshing from the belt. Every step now needs to be carefully considered. The rubber boots now carefully feel their way through the thorny jungle. At base camp, the precious juice flows through the sieve and fills the canisters hidden in the undergrowth.
Diva
The hurricane rages for three days. Then comes total exhaustion. Man and nature are on the ropes. But the sky clears. Steadier winds push in even higher waves from the west. Actually a provocative diva act. As if nothing had happened, Madame Baltica wears pretty-looking white foam crowns gracefully over her blue-green pleated skirt. A smooth model template. I try to convert the penalty. My hand reaches for a small, long metal box. The bluish black container, held together by barely recognizable remnants of adhesive tape, resembles a treasure chest. I carefully remove the adhesive residue. A click and the case opens. The pineapple scent spreads, exotic and familiar – a hint of the Indian Ocean. Chalk drifts and floats to the floor as a fine carpet. It scratches and scrubs. The chalk and charcoal crunch across the paper. Graphic attempt to wrest a “seascape” from the model and the moment. In and around us, the wind remains the director. He stages the dramas, he builds the silence and he accompanies us on our paths through highs and lows to new horizons.
More texts and pictures are collected on the BOOKS page
