Bernard Schultze

About the work

Akin to towering mountain ranges, the coloured forms in the watercolour "ringsrum 1" from 2002 appear to rise up from the paper. Although Schultze's works are generally non-figurative pictorial compositions, they frequently evoke associations with landscape. The artist himself stressed that it is with fragmentary aspects of landscape and traces of memory that he seeks to overcome the "horror vacui". This Latin term is based on Aristotle’s theory, which, in contradistinction to the Epicurean worldview, posits that a vacuum, that nothingness cannot exist in nature. The void between the stars was thought to be filled with ether. In the ensuing centuries, the Platonic school and even Descartes also rejected the notion of a vacuum. Although a vacuum was successfully created in the 17th century, quantum theory today asserts that a vacuum cannot be empty, but contains a finite concentration of energy.
The palette applied in the watercolour "All-Around 1" is rich and varied - ranging from dark-green, grey and violet hues to bright yellow. These are the colours with which Schultze works his amorphously fluctuating colour fields, forging a totally new spatial continuum across the surfaces. In his dream-like compositions, Bernard Schultze ushers us into a space in which nothing no longer exists. He highlights the energy-charged fields surrounding us, which, however, remain hidden from our eyes. And although we may occasionally sense the shimmering vibrations of energy fluctuating around us (all around), Bernard Schultze has rendered them visible.
(Andrea Fink)