About the work
Heinz Mack can be described without reservation as a universal artist. He is active in nearly all disciplines of the visual arts and as a pianist. He works as a painter, a draughtsman, a graphic artist and a photographer, and has created installations, environments, sculptures and kinetic objects as a sculptor. In his oeuvre, now spanning over a creative career of more than 70 years, he has developed a completely autonomous and always recognisable pictorial language, in which he dedicates himself completely to the themes of light and colour, movement and space.
In his painting too, Heinz Mack is always primarily interested in the visible presence of light and its energy, which manifests in colour. Although in this sheet the colours appear to be stacked vertically on top of one another in horizontal colour areas, they do not form colour fields demarcated from one another. Instead, they are distinguished by an irregular and inherently structured application of colour. The individual colours overlap, and their contours are also set quite casually. The colour is no longer bound to a rigid or representing form. In several areas, the white ground shimmers through and generates a sense of lightness filled with light. The pigments appear to virtually float above the paper as a result of the powdery application of the pastel chalk. The colour is liberated from its effective connection with the image carrier and shines.
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.
