About

It’s the magic words that provide the key. Not ‘Simsalabim,’ not ‘Abracadara,’ no, no cheap hocus-pocus is to be found in Stefan Stichler. The collages and doodles consistently accompany his painting, and we can deem these - magic. ‘Silence’ can be read printed onto the mono-chrome bottle, “Dream” or perhaps “Moon,” “Today – Families – Burn-out” are stem-words for the day, or “Sex” and “Seven” and even “great Luxury.”

Collages of Nobel laureate verse articulate depictions from smokestacks to bucks in clouds, from “days of heavy heads” to a fog, to “wearing a shirt of rust and milk.” All of these are pronounced, in one form or other, while reading through the paintings of Stefan Stichler. Whereas the play of words, fantasy, daydreams, and nightmares are transformed into simple poetry, in the hands of the painter they become the vocabulary of the visual language. “Silence,” “Poverty,” “Bambi,” “Hedge” are the linguistic images, snapshots of daily-life thought fragments disclosed, flashes of inspiration, a sort of “Frankfort visions,” to reference Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, which are exhibited in the works of Stichler. A sketchbook that is not primarily of subjects, but of gestures and movements, of spaces and situations, of attitudes and conditions. The sketchbook’s content is the painter’s protagonists, but can not always be fully expounded upon. It is the abstract, the form of poetic musing in transit, also identifiable in Stichler’s scribbles, photos, and linoleum cuts which are his muses, guiding him in painting, or better even, guiding into his paintings. It is no accident that the artist favours large forms on life-size formats for an eye-to-eye encounter with the viewer, which almost feels as though entering a previously secured door, probing into a secret room behind the mirror. Stichler leaves the door invitingly open. As though in dreamt rooms, yet already always familiar. Perpetually appearing as though this is about beloved scenarios, an urban space, a playground, a possible café, the box-spring below the bridge, and the like, and more. Yet already, at the end each stands in solitude, for themselves. Occasionally within themselves, occasionally outside themselves, occasionally lonely, perplexed or strangely displaced; remaining, as though rooted in the very spot, all while the world around rotates, as it should. And... eventually dizziness sets in.

Here and there one thinks of Edward Hopper and the lost homeless figures, of the neon smoke possibly, and of the visual puzzles. As a matter of fact, one may name Stichler among such recounters of fantastic tales, at times more so, at times to a lesser extent so. On their own, they stay of this world. Even more, absent observer, they discontinue to endeavour. Metaphors and motifs certainly appear, and return. Path-markers in picturesque terrain, seemingly open, orientation points journeying into the painting. The skateboard, the fastening clamp, over there, something wanting to drop, coherence, there, something diverging, converging; there is a flock spotted or a self-portrayal and the intermittent globe, the encountered lamp-post and chance wash-sack illustrating a pendulum, its swing the artist has just preserved. Although the mannerisms of smoke are estranged.

The universe will never be told in its entirety here. Quite the opposite, Stichler’s paintings never aimed at entirety, but purposely leave spaces for projection, personalisations. Empty spaces, the so-called “white spots,” into which we place our images, snapshots, and snippets of ponderances. In short, filling in the spaces with our own experiences, tales, fears and recollections. “There is a blue room inside homesickness,” as Herta Müller put it, “which I must protect myself from.” Time and again, it appears in the paintings of Stichler, as

though we have just now realized ourselves to be at the sealed doorway. Until finally, after hesitation, almost breathless, possibly shaky, and with a thumping heart, we lay our hand upon the door-knock. Only then do we re-emerge into our own dream(-state).