September 2005

Gerhard Richter made this painting, September, with oil on canvas, using soft gestural marks in a melancholic palette of blues, greys and whites. I imagine the act of painting as a process of veiling and unveiling, shifting and emerging, through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Richter and imagine him thinking about the material qualities of paint—the texture, color, and surface of this work. The paint here is scraped thinly across the canvas. Look at the horizontal strokes that communicate a feeling of movement and blur the boundaries between representation and abstraction. Richter is in an ongoing conversation with painters like Turner, and many others, across time, each inspiring the other’s creativity. Painting is a form of embodied expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations. I find that so inspiring.