White demands meditation. — Raimund Girke
The color white was the singular focus of German artist Raimund Girke in a career that spanned over 40 years. Repeated gestural brushstrokes were a signature component of his work, and Girke used this element to explore the most fundamental, physical structures of painting – light, movement, vibration, and depth. Blue and brown tones set off the white marks in his work, and the look and feel of his paintings ranged from active and rhythmic to quiet and meditative over the decades. In this intimate work from 1998, wispy vertical strokes hover over an ultramarine ground, resulting in an utterly quiet and beautiful surface. Girke was included in Documenta 6 in 1977, and his work can be found in public collections in Germany and abroad.