Untitled 2010

This is an untitled artwork by Joachim Bandau, and who knows when it was made, or with what. But let's dive in! The repeated geometric forms, layered one on top of the other, creates this sense of depth and movement. There’s a kind of transparency to it, a layering of veils that lets you see through one idea to the next. I find myself thinking about how artists build up an image, layer by layer, decision by decision. The greyscale palette here is really doing some work, it lends a graphic quality to the piece. I love how the shapes towards the bottom are so solid, but as you move up, they fade into almost nothing. I feel that dance between the visible and the invisible, the solid and the ephemeral. It puts me in mind of the work of Gerhard Richter, in particular how his squeegee paintings embrace chance and process. Art, after all, is not about answers; it’s about the questions we ask along the way.