A quick visit to Tate Modern to catch the Gerhard Richter exhibition. What a painter! I had no idea that he covered such a variety of styles and techniques. Indeed, it left me wondering if he had multiple personalities: how can someone paint this one day:
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| Orchid Orchidee |
and this another?:
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| Cage 4 |
The curation of the exhibition deliberately makes just such contrasts, and helpfully explains some of Richter's motivations: repudiating the statement that painting is dead. But if it is alive, what is it doing? I've also found his
website which includes some really interesting videos.
Above all I was enthralled by his large abstract pieces, often referred to as the squeegee works, because he uses that tool extensively. I was encouraged by his attitude to chance - allowing the process to determine the outcome, rather than planning in advance. There's so much to look at in these works, I could stand there for hours finding layers under layers under layers. And such amazing colour combinations...
An earlier work, but created with a similar philosophy was this grey painting:
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| Grau 1970 |
Aparently he put blobs of black and white paint randomly around the canvas, then took a brush and joined them up, moving it around until all the canvas was covered by paint. It fascinates me how much depth he's achieved, and how distinct each pass of the brush is. And then it's also inspirational...I want to get out the paint and see what I can do with a similarly restricted methodology...but maybe not black and white...maybe a bit of colour?
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