Cage 2 2020

Gerhard Richter made this painting, Cage 2, using oil on canvas. It's all about the swipe. Can you see the horizontal drag of the paint, like a windshield wiper cleaning a dirty window? I imagine Richter standing there, tool in hand, layering and scraping. It’s not just about adding but subtracting, a back-and-forth, trial and error. The colors are muted, acidic almost—greens, grays, and creams. They create a hazy atmosphere, like looking through a clouded lens. I see a landscape, maybe a field, a river. Richter plays with abstraction and representation, which is a conversation between showing and concealing, revealing and obscuring. He's in dialogue with artists from the past, like Turner, all the way through to the present day, like me! We are all asking: How can paint capture a feeling? How can a gesture communicate a thought? Painting is a messy, imperfect, and beautiful way to try and answer those questions.