Martha Jungwirth Der Hund, 2020

Martha Jungwirth stated in the past that she paints in such a way that things can’t be identified, but Der Hund (2020) is more openly figurative, starting with its title (*The Dog* in English), which gives form to the silhouette that emerges from the blotches and brushstrokes coalescing on the canvas. This balance between abstraction and figuration, between unconscious impressions and ‘a deep awareness of the immeasurableness of reality’ (Hans-Peter Wipplinger, 2020), was particularly important to Jungwirth during the pandemic as she created her most recent works. She recalls: ‘When you are isolated you make a jigsaw puzzle out of your memories, some things are more animated and lively, they hang together like a mycelium. This context in which I had to live has had an effect on my life. My work was reduced to the gesture, the skeletal. Condensation.’ The reduced pictorial language of Der Hund also brings to mind the preverbal world and the first lines drawn in cave paintings, acknowledging ties with the origins of art.