Field lines

In a reference to her professional position, almost poetically condensed, Uta Reinhardt stated in 2016:

“A perpetual pursuit: everlasting present. Existence. Wandering, I follow lines and messengers. In paintings the world can be the way it is and the way it is not. In relation to painting this means: Study and let things come to you.”

Field lines, the title of the new solo exhibition, is interpreted by Reinhardt in this sense as a double spatial reference in painting: Literally, as an operation transcending space which studies infinite plurality with regard to its laws, randomness and adaptations. Field lines osculate known dimensions and forge into new dimensions: Men and women are wanderers. In a figurative sense the field lines speak of an exploratory attitude. We like to trace the visible to the known, vulgo: pattern recognition. Against this “scanning” attitude which continuously tries to assert itself in what is familiar, Reinhardt insists on the necessity of questioning and study using the means of painting. The world is to reveal itself in claims and denials - “the way it is and the way it is not”.

In her exhibition of new work Reinhardt, who spent the early summer of 2017 as an artist in residency in California, documents an awakening at multiple levels: with large formats in Indian ink on canvas, she unlocks the special potential of work in a black-and-white tone scale in which the opaque applications in the glazing technique become particularly significant. The eponymous cycle Field lines in turn, consisting of long cut paper webs with Indian ink drawings walks through the possibilities from the figurative to abstraction, with a high degree of inquisitiveness into technique and content. And in the “Diabelli” set of monotypes based on screen printing, Reinhardt creates a variation cycle of impressive color richness and inventiveness.