Thorsten Dittrich

Thorsten Dittrich’s pictures draw us into their depths. We follow him curiously and willingly: into his abstract “mental” landscapes, which he has mostly created in an interplay of drawing, painting and collage.

It’s like being in an exciting dream where we don’t know what will happen next, but we know it’s a dream – and therefore don’t want to wake up yet.

Thorsten Dittrich takes us to “unvisited” places, into a labyrinth of – autobiographically motivated – feelings and moods that are predominantly restrained, but in some places erupt (in color) like small volcanic eruptions. It seethes underground.

The many layers and superimpositions do not allow a logical grasp of the space. Some objects and figures are only hinted at and are reminiscent of familiar things, but are in constant motion and transformation. One often thinks one recognizes building-like forms, which, however, dissolve again as one’s gaze wanders.

The more the eye searches for something concrete, for an orientation in the mental landscape, the deeper one penetrates into the sometimes somewhat uncanny world. And discover the close proximity of this painting to music. You think you can hear spherical jazz chords – soft and fading away again. Loud was not Thorsten Dittrich’s thing. Despite everything, he maintained a certain intimacy. The relatively small formats want you to get close to them.

With some of his pictures, you need a moment, still dazed from the trip into the depths, to come back to reality.

What if he had painted more on large formats? Perhaps we would be completely drawn into these fascinating landscapes. Perhaps one would also wish that the dream would not come to an end.