Gerhard Richter.

Born in 1932, Dresden, Germany, Gerhard Richter is a visual artist who has produced a wide variety of artwork ranging from; abstract, photo-realistic to glass and photography. He currently lives and works in Cologne. Richter is very much involved in contemporary art and is also involved in monochrome painting. Most of his work is abstract using acrylic and oil paint. In the 1970's he began a particular painting style that combined various styles together that he had previously developed. Richter believes that a 'core model' is constantly working, transforming every visible thing into a still image on a mirror. His work tries to show the fact of this photographic seeing into layers that are ready made. Paintings on a painting. Richter has since developed his won style 'photo painting' which has become very recognised. This style consists of pulling the paint across the damp surface using a wide rubber squeegee. He has refined this technique achieving a balance between structures and deliberate corrections. 

His paintings which have particularly inspired my print work is his series of 6 paintings done in 2006, currently showing at the Tate Modern in London, 'Cage'. Like his previous abstract paintings created using squeegees, the Cage paintings are the results of many layers of paint. Their surfaces are covered in lines where Richter has stopped the squeegee, left brush strokes, other scrapings and also areas where the oil paint has dried and rippled. The paintings remind me of reflections and water or hazy glows over a landscape causing the colours to blend with one another. Also in some of the paintings the texture created looks very coarse like a scratched wall. When creating this series of paintings, he was listening to the music of John Cage and this is why he names the series 'Cage'. Richter is particularly drawn to Cage's rejection of intuition as well as randomness, planning his paintings through structures and also by chance processes. What I am particularly attracted to within Richter's work is his use of and application of colour. I wish to further explore this in my print work looking more closely at how I can print the colour and create my colour pallet in different ways.


(The Cage painting no. 6, 2006, 300cm x 300cm, oil on canvas)