ALF LOHR 

 

Löhr’s work is ethereal. There is no obvious brush stroke, nor a repertoire style, so that every painting is unique. At the same time, decision making and control are apparent as a nature-like gesture where splashes and marks come alive, encompassing an ‘essence’. This never fails to surprise the viewer with vitality and constant dynamism. Flows of ink are caught in mid-air on a canvas, creating the rhythm of moving water or wind as parallel forces that are in motion.

Löhr's large abstract works capture time and fluidity. His paintings are a complex interaction between color, form and pictorial space. He works with many layers of paint on paper or canvas, mostly translucent, which in the process of painting are sometimes removed again and replaced by new ones. The entire chronology of his working process remains visible through the formations of overlapping, translucent layers of paint. Löhr’s technique of painting wet on wet, his use of extremely liquid medium and tools which are hardly controllable give way to planned occurrences of contingencies; colors may mix and new shapes appear while others fade away. His paintings become test areas of painterly possibilities, wherein the results always appear as readable compositions.