Thor 2016

Albrecht Behmel made this painting of Thor using acrylic on canvas, and I’m really struck by how he builds form out of flat shapes of colour. It’s a process of addition, of accumulating chromatic and geometric information, a bit like life itself! The paint is applied thinly, in blocks, in all these different colours, and yet, somehow, from a distance, it becomes Thor. Up close, it’s a sea of abstraction, but step back and there he is, cape billowing. It reminds me that art can be anything, and that there are so many ways of understanding something. Look at the way Behmel uses red in the cape. It gives the picture dynamism, almost as if the figure is in motion. I see echoes of Leger in Behmel’s approach, that same interest in the figure, broken down and rebuilt. But, ultimately, Behmel is very much his own artist, playing with representation and abstraction, inviting us to join in the fun.