How It Glows Collage

“Wie es leuchtet I” (How It Glows I) is a composition of reduced and asymmetrically positioned colors and forms on a white background, a composition which can not be designated either as abstract or as figurative. Slightly displaced from the center of picture stands a wind-skewed construction on fragile supports, accompanied by three diagonal, rectangular dark planes that suggest the relics of a ladder or a building. A small, disparate ensemble of brown-colored planes marks the lower right corner. Beneath the rough surface of sparcely applied oil paint in the lighter portions of the painting, deeper color levels shine through; the forms, in contrast, are of paper, collaged into the picture and then over-painted. Only with a second look can one recognize along the lower border figures before the dark surfaces- figures that can be discerned in old photographs of unknown persons- thereby tipping the composition into a figurative mode. To the lower right, if perceived in respect to the size of the figures, stand a high tower before a gray-white sky: all this bathed in a diffuse light at some inhospitable site, the location and nature of which remain unclear.