Daniel Richter Maedar, 2021
In Daniel Richter’s Maedar (2021), transient figures flicker in and out of view, suggesting the chaotic entanglements of fragmented bodies that dissolve into their surroundings. As he describes, ‘My concern is with the surface, this flat, tangled, never-changing scheme of figure constellations, in and out’. The intertwined, even merged, forms suggest an ambiguous, episodic encounter, which is heightened by the bold use of contrasting blues, reds and yellows. There is an undeniably erotic dimension to the work, but Richter has explained that ‘it’s more a question of systems of representation rather than portraying the body as a carnal, biological thing’.
Horizontal bands in shades of pink form the background’s underlying structure, along with the stark black outlines that define both the forms and the voids. The superimposed riot of fragmented figural elements – which Richter refers to as the ‘negating dominant structure’ – is applied with a palette knife before he outlines them with graphic strokes of oil crayon. It is not until this final stage that the composition fully reveals itself to the artist: ‘up to the moment when the chalk and the gesture are added, what you see are forms that are sort of swimming or drifting, and then at the end, only through the brutalist determination of the painter, some sort of face is squeezed in, some drama or other’.
