About the work
The art of Heinz Mack is colour art. This Small Colour Chromaticism with the various colour gradations of blue shows the differentiation with which the artist varies each shade in order to generate a completely autonomous overall tone. No one sheet resembles the other in his series of colour chromaticisms from 2022, although they are similarly structured. Here, the lower edge of the painting concludes with a green-turquoise transition of colour. Mack often works with structures and patterns in order to address the theme of colour as a result of the reflection of light. Especially the delicate, dot-shaped elements, which emerge almost pertly between the two upper colour areas, seem lyrical and playful. Clear here is how far Mack is from a purely rational perspective of the phenomenon of light and colour. Mack is a lyrical artist who comprehends light as an aesthetic category and for whom the quality of light is not to be interpreted conceptually. Mack does in fact paint with pastel colours on handmade paper, but what he creates are “objects […] whose manner of appearance is immaterial.”(1) This painting presents itself to the viewer as a true powerhouse.
1 Heinz Mack, quoted from: Mack – Licht, Light, Lumière, ed. Helmut Friedell, Munich 2018, p. 10.
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.
