Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter has been an inspiration of mine since my abstract flare began during the second year collaboration project. I felt a prominence of bold colour and experimental lines throughout his work which really began to relate to my work. Richter still now is influencing my practice for similar reasons.
Attraction to Richter’s Work
· Colour
· Colour pallets
Colour is something that I absolutely adore when it comes to painting. Bright, bold and often irrelevant and unrealistic colour is a theme that has informed my practice over my artistic years. Over the past few months I have been trying to control my use of colour within my work and make sure that the work is a representation in my own way of what I see and am inspired by. This combined with my love for strong initiative colour is beginning to guide me in the right direction to find the middle and what does justice for my work. Richter’s work shows an insight of both colour groups, i.e. bright and extravagant, as well as toned down and earthly.
· Abstraction
The abstract feeling that comes across when looking at Richter’s work is sublime. You have to delve into the painting. The shapes he uses can be lines or sometimes more blurred shapes where the paint has just absorbed into the paper and merged together. Where Richter’s work takes a very abstract approach my work is still showing dominant features of the landscape with an edge of abstraction. The level I have currently found between realism and abstraction is where I would like to stay as I am really enjoying it. I am looking at the levels of abstraction in Richter’s work and his mark making techniques as i find it very interesting how he demonstrates diverse approaches.
· Colour integration
Allowing the colours to run together or merging them on top of each other whilst still wet is something that Richter seems to apply to his work. It often works to create something unique which hasn’t always been seen before. It is eye catching and inspires me to begin merging my colours together.
· Thickly layered paint
Thickly applied paint creating texture is something that I love to use in my work. This however has been overtaken by my small watercolour and acrylic sketchbook documentations which I have then been trying to create on a larger scale. I am trying to create the wash look and then bring in the thickly applied paint in places to create the texture. Some of his works have a flat appearance and some have a textured presence. The combination of the two is what I need to find.
· Dominant lines and shapes
Dominant lines and shapes in Richter’s work is what the eye is first drawn too. It creates the tone of the drawing and also the presence of the subject matter. The shapes in my work are forming the compositions and therefore seeing them continuously in Richter’s work is an inspiration to keep looking at the different forms and ways he creates them.
Gerhard Richter’s work is acting as an inspiration to me constantly for the reasons posted above. I will continue looking at him and questioning my own work in relation to these points along the way.
Questioning my own work
Why am I beginning to control the colour if it has always been a passion of mine?
Why is the level of abstraction that I want to create still a representation of my subject rather than complete abstraction?
What is it about colour integration that interests me, rather than a distinctive separation of colour?
Why are shapes and lines important to me in my work?
