His technique might for some seem old-fashioned – his studio bears a distinct scent of Oil and Canvas – but it is this insistence on making the exact statement with more traditional materials that shows his distance from certain ’Cash and Carry’-painters – and the concept of originality was exactly what struck me the most when I crossed the threshold to his studio in a bustling, but at the same time picturesque part of Torsleff’s hometown, Aarhus:
A large portrait of Louis Armstrong is quite conspicuous. It is almost as if Torsleff simply is too big for smaller rooms. He is apparently very fascinated by the human face – and hereunder, if not familiar, then well-known faces: There is a broad variety of celebrities, spanning old American moviestars to German football-players from the 1970’s. In this retrospective view of Torsleff’s works you feel another nerve in his paintings; an almost manic fascination with the 70’s. I mean, who would portray a disgraced American president; Nixon? Does anybody know who Karen Blixen or Poul Henningsen is – and how do Franz Beckenbauer, Lou Reed and Marlene Dietrich appeal to youth nowadays? Torsleff is a man in his late thirties, and you might say that he is investigating his past by this rendering of his childhood icons, but this is too poor an expression.