About the work
Heinz Mack composes seven vertically arranged colour areas on top of one another in two horizontally progressing widths of colour. They are kept in various nuances of yellow, orange and red, whereby correspondences between the individual colour areas emerge repeatedly. These are in no sense monochrome, purely constructivist colour areas, but instead painterly and powdery areas with several elements of overpainting and overlapping of formulated colour complexes. The eye, fascinated by the wealth of variation in the smallest details, repeatedly moves back and forth between the individual colour areas. The mode of viewing, like the work itself, is characterised by lightness. The painting presents itself in a bright, fresh, one might also say, in keeping with the painting title, friendly colourfulness. That this does not seem nervous lies in the harmoniously balanced palette and the light blue colour areas suggesting peacefulness at the bottom and top edges of the painting.
Heinz Mack developed his completely independent language of light and colour in the 1950s. Colour plays a decisive role in his art – surely the most important next to light. In the Chromatischen Konstellationen (Chromatic Constellations), the artist creates completely new colour families through colour progressions and textures that always merge in the overall composition to form an autonomous, harmonious whole.
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.
