About the work
This Farbchromatik is characterised by the two colours yellow and turquoise, whereby here too, as in almost all works of Heinz Mack, these are not monochrome colour areas. Instead, the colour areas are structured in themselves. Especially conspicuous are the vertical structures that further underline the layout of the work as a vertical format. Mack, who has always occupied himself in his work with light and colour as fundamental natural phenomena, here too occupies himself with the two basic orientations of our existence: the vertical and the horizontal as the two basic directions of the world. The vertical direction thereby points downward because it is subject to gravity in purely physical terms. Mack’s pastel, however, is distinguished here by a clear upward movement. His colours counter the forces of the earth’s gravitational pull. Especially the yellow also refers here to the spiritual level. At the lower edge of the painting, the turquoise corresponds with a narrow band of light blue, while the yellow at the top edge of the painting is delimited by another narrow area of orange. The blue pastel colour was worked in recognisably over the turquoise, and the orange accent also lies on top of the yellow. Thanks to these minimal colour accents, Mack is able to channel the immense colour force of turquoise and yellow and guide its radiance forward out of the painting.
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.
