For Schierenberg, there is an ‘emotional charge’ that comes from the different textures and densities, and ultimately the light conditions, that occur in a place at a certain time. He describes his process in 2010:
“Painting and painting and painting, endlessly exploring ideas in paint on canvas, always painting my way. Finding that over time I can’t see the trees for the paint. Sometimes it’s good to try a new way, a different path, expose oneself to the vagaries of chance – and see the trees again.”
Tai-Shan Schierenberg was born in China in 1962, the eldest of three sons to a very young Chinese mother and a German painter. As a child he spent the first years of his life with his grandparents in Malaysia but was eventually returned to his London-based parents for the beginning of primary school.
Being taken on frequent visits to the London Museums or art galleries made him familiar with painting of all realms and ages, while drawing soon became the child’s favourite activity. After extensive travels to the places of Antiquity in Greece and Asia Minor, the family settled in the Black Forest and, in pursuit of a more ecologically centered life, did some subsistence farming.