Gunther Forg: Passage

You can make something out of nothingSome of the current batch of watercolours were originated on partially sullied sheets of paper, on sheets that had been used either as an underlay for the painting of other watercolours or one that were to hand during this process in order that the artist could dab his brush now and then or test the value of a particular colour. Such literal working papers now form the basis for watercolours and paintings, which cover the whole range from cheery fields of paint blots to an intensive encounter between different principles of form. It is self-evident that the quasi self-originating beginnings of this new pictorial language also deal with the phenomenon of horror vacui, which on the one hand equivocally demands that the emptiness–the pure white of the canvas–should be done away with and yet in so doing, simultaneously induces a high degree of anxiety, rendering any composition a sheer impossibility. We can forge a connection to French Impressionism, which was quite literally thrown back upon the essence of the blot in its quest for that true visual insight and depiction of the world, as we also could see in these paintings the contemporary answer for that depiction.

Exhibition:

Fuhrwerkswaage, Cologne, 25/3-22/4/2007