Artist Research: Gerhard Richter -
Gerhard Richter ( born 9th February 1932) is a German artist who has produced abstract paintings, photorealistic paintings, photographs and glass pieces. His artistic practice undermines the concept of an artists obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.
This is something in which I myself think relates to my own studio practice at the moment, which is focusing on hard- edged designs made from adhesive and electrical tape, and is now in the process of introducing abstract acrylic paintings as well.
The pieces of Gerhard Richter's work which I have been looking into and researching have been his abstract oil pieces which he creates using his hand-made squeegee technique. This technique which requires a physical process and kinetic motion to drag the paint across the canvas in either a horizontal or vertical direction is something in which I feel is an interesting approach to creating art.
This method of painting is something I want to try out for myself but instead with a window squeegee, as it will relate to the everyday tools that I have been working with so far in terms of the adhesive and electrical tape. However, in contrast to Gerhard Richter's pieces, I will be aiming to create pieces which express a composition of built up marks, which range in colour, scale and direction. By using this repetitive motion of applying paint and dragging it across paper in various directions I hope to convey this movement within the pieces outcome/s as a way of communicating the process behind each pieces creation and providing an insight to the context into which they were made.
The reason I want to use a window squeegee instead of making and using a similar one to Gerhard Richter, is to allow myself to explore a new tool and technique for myself, with the intention to produce new visual pieces that vary from the ones that are noticeably associated with Richter's practice.
Another aspect that I like with Gerhard Richter's squeegee pieces, is the transition and gradient between colours due to the way the paint is dragged across the canvas and subsequently blended together. This allows the colours to merge and create new variations of the same colours and an overall transitioned composition.