Sailing art for the Chancellor: Olaf Scholz gets a lot of "Blue Spirit" from Heinke Böhnert

A beautiful sailing gift for Chancellor Olaf Scholz: during his visit to the Schleswig-Holstein state capital of Kiel, Lord Mayor Ulf Kämpfer presented him with a work by Heinke Böhnert before entering it in the city's Golden Book. The name: "Blue Spirit". The picture shows fantasy boats and is in the typical style of the Hamburg artist. It contains pieces of cloth from many well-known sailors and popular boats. Sail parts from Boris Herrmann's Vendée Globe yacht "Seaexplorer", from Laser world champion Philipp Buhl and from two-time Olympic 49er bronze medallists Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel are among those incorporated. The request to Böhnert for this special picture: it should reflect the axis between Berlin, Hamburg and Kiel.

The picture measures 60 by 60 centimetres and also incorporates the south of Germany with a piece of Luitpold Prince of Bavaria's Asso-99 sail. The many historical scraps of original sails from top German sailors make the picture a very special one-off, which Chancellor Olaf Scholz was obviously delighted with. Heinke Böhnert is an artist known far beyond the sailing scene and German borders for her collages.

From Boris Herrmann's prominent "Malizia" to Team New Zealand's America's Cup yacht "Te Aihe" and the Olympic celebrities to the last Ocean Race winner "Dongfeng": they all characterise Böhnert's pictures with small excerpts from their discarded sailing wardrobe. Böhnert has received small and large treasures from the crews in the form of sails, which are incorporated into her powerful expressionist works. Mostly captured in acrylic on canvas and interwoven with found objects from the sailing world, Böhnert also inspires non-sailors with her invigorating art.

Heinke Böhnert is a passionate sailor herself, having learnt about water sports in the wind and waves on the Elbe from an early age. Today, she accompanies her husband Freddy Böhnert sailing whenever possible. Böhnert has exhibited her works in galleries on almost every continent over the past few decades. She donates ten per cent of the proceeds from the sale of paintings containing sailing pieces from Boris Herrmann's "Seaexplorer" to the Team Malizia youth development project My Ocean Challenge, "because I think it's great and exemplary how Boris and his team take care of the education of young people for a future worth living".