Uran 1989

Gerhard Richter made 'Uran' with oil paint on canvas, though you might think it was made with a squeegee or something similar. It's a really interesting way to think about how paintings are made, not with a brush, but through the act of dragging and scraping. The surface has this unbelievable texture, and the colors are so subtle, mostly grays and blacks, and whites. There's a real physicality to the painting. Look at the way the paint is pulled down the canvas, leaving these trails and ridges. See how in the bottom-right corner the paint seems to have gathered, almost like a little pool? It's like the painting is a record of its own making, capturing the movement and energy of the artist's hand. Richter is always playing with abstraction and representation and this feels like another experiment in his practice. It reminds me a little of those landscapes Turner used to paint, always pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. And that, for me, is what art is all about.