Self-Portrait 1939

This is Walter Kurt Wiemken's Self-Portrait, and what strikes me is how he lays down these thin washes of greens and browns, like he’s feeling out the space. The paint is so fluid it almost drips down the canvas; I can imagine him tilting the board this way and that, coaxing the image into being. Look at the way he’s rendered his face. The dark, almost severe lines around his eyes and mouth, like he’s staring right through you. And behind him, these skeletal trees under a wash of blue – a landscape of the mind, maybe? I wonder if Wiemken was thinking about other artists like Kirchner, who also used colour to express inner states? Ultimately, painting is about embracing the unknown and letting the marks guide you. Every brushstroke is a decision, a feeling, a thought made visible. And it's these visible traces of thoughts and actions that echo into the future.