About the work
An incomparably light-flooded brightness distinguishes this work. The colours develop from left to right from light blue to turquoise through light green to pale yellow. This is followed by an interruption with a nearly white omission, then a coloured area with a colour progression in intense yellow. This is concluded by a thin stripe of ochre. At the top and bottom, these vertical stripes of colour are accompanied by two horizontals in light blue hues. The paint is applied as glazes. The complete painting awakens the impression as if light were shining through the canvas like through coloured windows. “Painting has always fascinated me when it is filled with light", according to the artist. “However, painting is also much more than that for me: it is this foreground of endlessly deep and black space in which light and colour inseparably become one. The identity of light and colour, which is visible in the spectrum, is the subject of my painting - it is its only subject”. The title of the “Chromatic Constellations” work group derives from the musical term "chromaticism” . This term also contains the word “colour” (ancient Greek “chroma”). Heinz Mack, who initially strived for a career as a pianist, implements the musical chromaticism in painting as a rhythmic sequence of graduated colour hues. His Chromatic Constellations introduce the colour spectrum of light in its whole progression or also only in partial areas. Mack’s art is defined by the contradiction that he on the one hand dissolves matter while at the same time making the immaterial, in this case light, visible.
Text authored and provided by Dr Andrea Fink, art historian
The art historian, curator and freelance publicist Andrea Fink studied art history, cultural studies and humanities, modern history and philosophy in Bochum and Vienna. Doctorate in 2007 on the work of the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. As a freelance curator and art consultant, her clients include, among others, the Kunstverein (art association) Ahlen, Kunstverein Soest, Wella Museum, Museum am Ostwall Dortmund, ThyssenKrupp AG, Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Osthaus Museum Hagen, Franz Haniel GmbH, Kunsthalle Krems, Austria.
