DRÖSCHER’S STAR FLOATS OVER LONDON BY LINE ROSENVINGE
Information, 11 June 2007, 1st section, page 17
The visual artist Benny Dröscher has made a strong impression in Denmark, but is now also being presented to an international art audience at Rokeby Gallery in London. Information met with the artist, who enjoys setting grand metaphysical themes in motion in his fluent style
By Line Rosenvinge
A circle is eternal, and the circles in Benny Dröscher's images are formal compositions which keep the pictures open. In terms of meaning they are like circadian rhythms, the passage of the seasons, or death alternating with life.
It was a happy artist who opened his solo exhibition on 16 May at Rokeby Gallery in London, which in the course of a year has made its mark as a strong young gallery with a sympathetic interest in Danish artists. Rokeby works with such artists as Simon Keenleyside, Peter Davies, Kathrine Ærtebjerg and now Benny Dröscher.
On the end wall on the first floor of the narrow gallery hangs a typical Dröscher picture with a gaping empty circle, scattered elements from the natural world and a few small spots of colour. Around the hole, some birds bustle about. Many of his pictures feature holes, empty surfaces, or a kind of vanishing point, tilting the perspective. In the absence of a horizon, there is no way to establish what is up or down.
"The round form keeps everything fluid in the picture. If you draw a line, you’ve got a horizon. That's what I want to avoid. So I have to turn the canvas and approach it from several sides. I like to keep it as open as possible. As floating, I mean as fluid, as possible."
It is no coincidence that Dröscher's tongue gets tied in knots when he speaks. There is most certainly something not just fluid, but also floating, about his work.
Elemental metaphysics
Fire. Earth. Air. Water. The artist attempts to call forth the elemental and the metaphysically exalted. Where does it all come from?
"When you lie on your back on a summer's day and look up at the sky, you rarely think about washing machines. It is nature that makes itself felt. Everyday life tends to fade away quite quickly when you let your thoughts wander like that. I'm interested in what turns up after the everyday thoughts. I once happened to say that I had created a religious exhibition. It wasn't really about religion as dogma, but rather about the small private conviction that you construct as a human being in the world. I feel it's just as legitimate to believe in UFOs as to worship at heathen stone circles or set your trust in the Biblical creation story."
The elements make their presence felt in all of the works at the exhibition. You can perceive the artist's academic training in sculpture; neither the paper works nor the paintings are covered with colour. Everything seems set, like things placed in the room. Things don't tell stories - they create situations. Sometimes there are flourishes with a ball-point pen or a soft pencil, and on the paper works, perhaps a random coffee spot.
"I think the lightness of my pictures appeals to some people and gives the impression of a flowing, perhaps meditative, contemplative state. When that happens, you can put up with the company of the pictures for a very long time."
The sculptures are carefully worked and stand like pop icons, playing the role of fire and water. Or else they are sophisticated compositions of such materials as fur, pearls, branches and other stuff.
One is tempted to speak of pairs of opposites. And indeed, so does Benny Dröscher himself, when you direct the conversation to the subject of the recurrent themes.
"Nature is both beautiful and violent at once. It calls forth devotion, but also humility," says Dröscher, who feels it is sacrilegious to represent nature, and yet does so.
Nature and cycles
Here is a waterfall sculpture, with water running out of the wall and disappearing down between the floorboards with a frozen splash. The water has a mother-of-pearl look, like 1980s nail varnish. The water pours into a hut, indicated by a lightly curving and gnarled silver branch. Around the corner, a remarkable self-reflecting bonfire peeps forth. Gold glitters amid the flames. Both the sculptures and the pictures use trees; there is almost always a fir tree or a birch branch in evidence.
"I use a lot of trees. Many ancient cultures used to worship trees. The Indians believed they were the risen forms of their brothers and sisters. In the course of time, a great deal of symbolic significance has been placed in nature. While I was staying at the Danish Institute in Rome, I found a book about botanical symbolism in Italian Renaissance painting. It was exhilarating to read. Some of them must have eaten mushrooms. You see the Virgin Mary standing in a barren stony desert with an aubergine at her feet. I don't know what other people get out of it, but for me it's really trippy."
The artist is not afraid to address the subject of death, either, and calls one of his new sculptures There Is Really No Reason To Be Afraid Of Dying.
"Most people push the thought of death aside, but every night when you fall asleep, you die in order to wake up to a new day next morning. That's how all of life goes. You can enlarge it or diminish it. Everything runs in a cycle."
And this is just the beginning - or rather a continuation, because everything goes in circles, and there are more works on the way. More flying beech trees and more elemental metaphysics.
For more information, see:
www.rokebygallery.com