From 1992 onward, Günther Förg created the group of works known as "Gitterbilder" (Grid Pcitures), in which the artist applied mostly coarse lattice structures with various painting materials to the image carrier. Förg, whose works always consist of just one layer of paint, once stated in a conversation with Siegfried Gohr: "There is no waste in pictures, for example, so there is no waste in lead pictures, either, if necessary, I decide something very intuitively; e.g. to go with any color, I paint something in curry, but if it doesn't work at all, I put a violet next to it and save the picture." (Günther Förg, quoted from: Günther Förg in a conversation with Siegfried Gohr, Cologne 1997, p. 41). Regardless of whether it is in his serial works, his lead paintings, late large formats or his lattice paintings, Förg's painting has to succeed in one go, the pictorial event has to be rendered in just one layer of paint. Time and again, Förg's painting seeks to stylistically engage with other artists. In addition to influences from abstract pre-war Modernism, Constructivism and Suprematism, the work of the early deceased Blinky Palermo was formative for the art student Förg in the 1970s. Later, American Action and Color Field Painting, such as paintings by Willem de Kooning, Clifford Stills and Barnett Newman, became a source of inspiration. Förg adapts and transforms what he sees, repeatedly making new impulses usable in terms of color or form for his own, multifaceted work.

In the painting "Untitled" (2002) offered here, Günther Förg places his dynamic structures on the canvas with spontaneous impetus. The resulting depiction, which oscillates between a conceptual approach and individual punctuation, stands out from the series of "Grid Pictures" with its expressive and accentuated, but at the same time harmoniously balanced color palette. Like all his works, "Untitled" is also characterized by Förg's vibrant color scheme, which he once described as follows: "Technically, I go into the next color with the brush, so that I don't get monotony in the palette, but a kind of wealth. If you have gray and add a flesh tone, then first of all there is a mixed color and gradually it becomes more and more of a flesh tone." (Günther Förg, quoted from: Günther Förg in a conversation with Siegfried Gohr, Cologne 1997, p. 43). Through the complex play of loosening and concentration, Förg gives the composition a powerful brilliance. [AM]