7.3.86 1986

Gerhard Richter made this painting on the 7th of March 1986, using paint of course! What you notice first is the dominant warm palette, orange and red, with neon acidic green cutting through, and then the scrapes and gestures that suggest the painting came into being through shifting layers. I like to imagine Richter in his studio that day, circling the canvas. What’s he thinking? Maybe he’s trying to make something happen and maybe he’s waiting for something to happen. Look how he’s dragged a line of grey over an earlier layer of juicy orange. That one confident stroke, bam! It both reveals and conceals what’s underneath. That blob of violet pigment seems to have been applied with a palette knife, a decisive gesture. Then there are the black lines scored on the top that contain all of the colours. Richter has always been in conversation with other painters, from Pop Art to Ab-Ex. I bet he was looking at Twombly. This painting, like many, shows us that artists are always learning from and challenging each other to create something new and exciting. It’s a conversation that never ends.