Light Shift

When Peter Schlör invokes in his high-contrast black-and-white digital photographs the Flemish masters of depicting light, for example Salomon van Ruisdael, there are two reasons for this: for one, Schlör’s photographs are oriented on a rough grid governing the distribution of light and shadow. And for another, they are conceived from the outset as abstract structures whose figural elements are only gradually revealed. Out of his patient observation of the play of reflections of sun and clouds, the artist creates light-filled landscapes in which mountains, trees, fields and houses come into view.
This sensitive handling of light has distinguished Schlör’s work for more than two decades. In his most recent compositions as well, elements unnoticed at first glance gradually emerge in what initially seemed to be abstract black-and-white fields. The landscape in Turkey or the Canary Islands that was at first perceived as »untamed nature« turns out to be a civilized landscape – attesting to the intervention of human hands. By harking back to the grand tradition of landscape painting, Peter Schlör restores to photography its original description as »héliogravure«: drawing with light.