Studie zu SWF 44 1951

This is a Hans Hinterreiter, Studie zu SWF 44. It’s an explosion of dark blue, white and orange shapes. I’m thinking about Hans in his studio, what was it like for him to make this, those triangles meeting, colliding, creating depth. It feels quite mathematical, like he’s trying to solve a problem. I get the feeling that for Hans, painting was a visual puzzle, a kind of geometry problem, and he was trying to work it out, edge by edge, shape by shape. Look at how the orange slices play against the dark ground, how the white seems to want to escape, to make everything brighter, lighter. Thinking about all the conversations happening in abstraction at this time, it's like everyone was trying to figure out a different piece of the puzzle, and Hans was over here, with his own unique set of rules. It reminds you that painting is not just about what you see, but how you see it, and how you decide to put it all together.