Im blauen Raum

Rudi Baerwind lived in Paris and Mannheim, profiting from the cities’ respective art scenes. Sensitive to the impulses of the German and French avant-garde, which he experimented with in his own work, he carried out an abrupt change of style in 1957, turning from figurative Expressionism to gestural painting.

»In the Blue Room« is one of the first paintings from this new creative period. Strokes of paint—not following any specific direction—cover the picture ground, fusing to form an organic network, a lively structure, while the numerous layers of different paints interpenetrate to generate a spatial impression. The painting appears to be covered in a blue veil of varying transparency. The layered mesh of brushstrokes reveals numerous prospects of deeper layers, providing the viewer with an intimation of the pictorial space’s unfathomable color depth. Baerwind’s intuitive painting liberated itself from the representational character of figurative painting and draws its strength from the free play of brushwork and color.