Michael Bauer

Michael called me once to tell me his definition of painting:

“Unaufgeregte Extase” - unagitated ecstasy.

Isn’t that what yogis call Samadhi?

A state of bliss that can be obtained

not by fleeing the chaos surrounding us

but rather by setting our gaze inward in the thick of it,

diving into our own darkness, open hearted,

profoundly connected to the myriads of beings and things,

but untouched in our deepest core by the waves and percussions

and repercussions they emit.

I can’t find a color that is not in these paintings

(bundle them all together and you’ll probably get a perfect white),

their fluorescent sensuality shouting EUPHORIA!!

while the surrounding sludge is muttering tranquilito, tranquilito -

the scenes they put into shape together dissolving into something between battle and embrace.

All the clutter and confusion and nonsense of the world is in balance

(fragile, but in balance still),

watched over by benign powers

(some are visible, others hidden, even occult).

Uncle, aunt - props out of everyone’s life, if important or completely irrelevant, doesn’t matter - they stand by.

Caves! Fetal hideouts, but gem-stacked and dizzying in their synchronicity, like time lapses of fever dreams.

The MOON -

deprived of his waxing and waning, he is always FULL,

even more present as a force than an attribute

(a clock without hands) -

patiently reflecting with an undiminishable grace

whatever preposterousness or monstrosity is going on underneath

in this xeric psychedelia.

Might be a bad trip at times but someone is definitely holding our hand,

helping us face both friendly fellas and the ever transforming orcs and ogres,

guiding us from cave to cave and garden to garden, gentle sanctuaries where we can rest and restore, before we step into the next world within worlds, moonstruck, to find our proximate opponent, or dancing partner, or some half-creature that’ll accompany us for a few steps, as we set our eyes on the radiating path that meanders through it all,

knowing it’s going to be fine.

—Stefanie Popp, Köln, Februar 2020