“The Austrian artist Arnulf Rainer (b. 1929 in Baden) is regarded as a pioneer of "Art Informel", a movement which brought an intuitive form of lyrical expression into the field of abstraction. One of his early influences was Surrealism, and an ongoing interest in dreams and the subconscious imparts a mystical element to his work. He created his first Overpaintings in 1952, layering brushstrokes over existing artworks or photographs, and has continued to investigate the possibilities of this process throughout his career. Produced in dialogue with the underlying source material, which remains visible to varying degrees, the overpaintings play with notions of creation and destruction in a paradoxical homage to the original.” (Ropac)

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After 1954, his style evolved towards Destruction of Forms. Rainer searched for new means of expression through painting, for which he developed radical new procedures from the very beginning. He used blackenings, overpaintings, and maskings of illustrations and photographs creating densely textured abstract works through the slow accumulation of considered brushstrokes. The viewer is left to face the mystery of what lies beneath. Exploring colour, emptiness, surface and light, his works are always embedded with ulterior qualities. His early overpaintings, were part of the artist’s strategy for filling a deeply felt emptiness. (Meta; Ropac; Tate 2)

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“The organic act of creating is perhaps more essential than the completed painting; for this progressive participation in the obscuration or immersion of the painting, its gradual return to peace and invisibility […] could be compared to the contemplative experience of religious life.” (Rainer)

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His intensive search for new ways of painting and the constant development of new artistic strategies, accompanied by performative works and extensive writings, make Arnulf Rainer one of the most influential living artists of the present. (Arnulf-Rainer-Museum)