King in Bedlam 1996

This image is a painting titled "King in Bedlam" by Jorg Immendorff. Just imagine the making of it! A flurry of marks, a symphony of browns and golds and blues emerging through trial, error, and a little bit of intuition. Sympathizing with Immendorff here, I’m thinking about how the process of making a painting can be a real site of inquiry for the artist. Thick paint, thin paint, rough textures—they all pile up, not just as representation but as feeling. Look at the way the paint swarms and swirls around the central figure, how the gold jumps out, like memories or hallucinations. It's all so physical, so present! Immendorff, like many painters, engages in an ongoing conversation with the past. I'm reminded of other figurative painters grappling with history and identity. Ultimately, painting is a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, opening up multiple readings. It's a real mess, but in a good way!