Daniel Richter Witreid, 2025

Oil on canvas

270 × 200 cm (106.3 × 78.74 in)

I find artworks, especially paintings, most interesting when they seek to convey something to the viewer that is not entirely translatable through language, or even reason. When art fulfils its promise, it expands something within us, and it offers some kind of truth – whatever construction that may be.

— Daniel Richter

Daniel Richter’s most recent series of works navigates a space between figuration and abstraction, characterised by chaotic entanglements of fragmented bodies. In Witreid (2025), a creature-like shape is depicted against a jagged field of colour in bright, contrasting tones, evoking a sense of rebellious energy and electric vibrancy. Despite the underlying violence, the work conveys a touching sensuality and beauty that counterbalances its restless power. The vivd yellow shapes that seem to race across the canvas are thickly outlined in black, yellow, and red. ‘The dynamic in my work is mainly based on pushing and shoving, or on elements that are being confronted by each other – mingling, pushing, pulling,’ Richter explains. The temporal and spatial indeterminacy refuses to resolve into a coherent time, place, or even pictorial space.

In December, a major retrospective of Richter’s work will open at the Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Schloss Gottorf, Schleswig (until 15 February 2026).