There is something jazzy about Sebastiaan Schlicher’s drawings. Or rather something rocking, or even
more something punkish. Well, i guess i could go on mentioning musical styles. Too little
is known about the influence of music on the visual arts, which must have
been quite significant since the inventions of radio and gramophone, especially since the nineteen twenties
when records became more widely available. Where the mutual influence of vision, sound and
text can bring you today, is clearly visible in Schlicher’s work. Rythms, texts, stripes, lines,
hallucinatory visions and graffiti mix in an orgy of pencil, ink and improvisation. In
that way Schlicher stands in a musical-artistic tradition that has become more and more obvious
and explicit. His works seem to flow into music and vice versa without a
problem, so the real music might be something you may miss in his current exhibition
The Homestead Principle #4 at Maurits van de Laar Gallery. But i guess that
is just as well for Maurits van de Laar. Instead it is well worth seeing
the variety of rawness and virtuosity. Schlicher is not just a good draughtsman or
an endearing rough improviser; he knows how to make visions come alive. He knows both
their intimacy and their monumentality. He knows the secret life of the visual arts.
And if you don’t get it, there is always his Homestead to receive you.
(Click on the pictures to enlarge)
Bertus Pieters
Villa Next Door 