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In the shadowsRecently I dreamt I was standing in front of a parking lot thinking I knew the place. That was true. Only that I didn’t know it from real life but from past dreams. The parking lot stemmed from the image bank of my unconscious. While that sense of ‘I-know-that-from-somewhere’ is not a problem in a dream, looking back at it afterwards is slightly uncanny. In that moment does one dream that what one remembers, or remember that what one dreamt? Peter Busch paints images that one believes to have seen before – somewhere or other. A tent, abandoned on the wayside, a narrow row of houses with a pond in the foreground, engulfed by rural silence. Busch sometimes chooses places that one might already have been to. Sometimes his paintings recall images from art history: the solitary house, gardens suffused by light, views of mountain peaks. Yet it remains vague where these memories come from. The depicted locations are those perceived fleetingly, in passing – in-between places – places on the periphery of human activity: the last house in the settlement, the rear side of a hotel, or a wall in the park. In all this, human beings seem to play a subsidiary part. The occasional figure moves casually through the picture, making minimal gestures. Busch chooses his images out of intuitive fascination. Often, his paintings are based on postcards and photographs taken by the artist. However, Busch never consciously goes image hunting. His work involves waiting for the moment in which the right image becomes visible. It is precisely the triviality of Busch’s scenes, which causes their evocative effect. Within themselves they tell very little. Yet, as fragments and details, they leave ample room for imagination and memory, becoming prototypes of the already seen. WhiteOnce found and selected, Busch goes about animating the images in the studio. Asked as to which colour he needs to buy most regularly, the painter answers, “White. I actually only use white, never black.” Busch mixes all of his colours – primarily blues and greens – with white. White is what lends the pictures a sense of transience. White serves to weaken and break up the starkness of the hues and colours, neutralising severe contrasts. White drapes itself over the image like a veil, while also lending it an illusion of the sublime. This serves to distance the observer from the image. The action appears removed. Resembling overexposed or faded photographs the light decomposes the information. Acrylic On closer inspection, one notices the flatness and dullness of the paintings’ surfaces. In recent years Busch has used acrylic and dispersion paint. In contrast to more substantial oils, acrylics may be mixed with water, being runnier and quick drying. These paints engender a dull and matt facture. Busch paints on the floor, gradually applying the wet paint layer after layer. Gestural marks left by the brush to indicate the physical presence of the painter are sparse. Here too, Busch plays with a strategy of subtle opposition. Indeed, heroic painterly gestures and mad gesticulations in oils are foreign to Busch. Instead – reminiscent of his training as a stage set painter – Busch quotes the aesthetic of theatre scenery. He makes conscious reference to the temporary and provisional nature of such painting to subtly oppose notions of the painting as a fetish and artistic creation as a spectacular act. And yet … Peter Busch paints. To claim that his paintings be ‘immaterialised’ would perhaps be somewhat far-fetched. But the painter undertakes all he can in an attempt to counteract painting as a medium. And paradoxically, he achieves this with the very devices of painting. Busch counters the validity of the painted canvas with the motive of transience. He equips the canvas with forms, colour and shapes in order to represent an action. At the same time however, the simulative quality of the chosen images, the subdued palette and the renunciation of painterly pathos express Busch’s scepticism towards his own preferred medium. Busch’s work evolves from the critical interplay between fascination and sceptic reservation: Yet the scene of his investigations remains the picture. Susan Schmidt Translated from the German by Oliver Kossack |