As mentioned before, Ellsworth Kelly has been a major influence for my studio works and has a strong and continuing input. But I’ve recently started looking at Gerhard Richter, specifically his Mirror Painting series.
I first came across this series when writing the dissertation and include some of his works here.
I love the simplicity of these pieces and especially the playfulness of “Corner Mirror, Brown-Blue” and “Corner Mirror, Green-Red” which are, as mentioned, so simple, yet their visual aesthetic is highly detailed, there is so much to apprehend; the highly reflective surfaces reflect everything, from the aspects of the room it’s held in, to reflecting each other, thanks to their close proximity and composition as well as the audiences that view them. Next to regard is their colour and scale, just over 2 metres in height and a metre in width, they are placed in the corner of the room almost right next to each other. Without this highly reflective surface and decision to hang in this way, they wouldn’t have the same effect and they especially wouldn’t react with each other in the way that they do. There is a clear relationship between the two which is communicated by their surfaces and scale/composition; simple, but effective.