Sabine Moritz

FLORA

2021
oil on canvas
78 3/4 x 78 3/4 inches

The identity of Sabine Moritz’s abstract paintings has to do with the way she works, which can be described as an integrally empirical or optical method. It contributes essentially to the exemplarity of this strand of work. The paintings are produced without sketches or preparatory drawings. The series does not result from a concept. The idea for the painting is developed from several colored lines applied to canvases in the studio as a field of open possibilities. – Robert Fleck

German painter Sabine Moritz returns to the same motifs, memories, and source images for her work, and whenever she becomes stuck on an individual piece, she switches between the figurative works that she became known for and abstract paintings. Moritz began her colorful abstract works in 2015, and always chooses a square format for the canvases to resist interpretations of landscape or portraiture. Her overlapping brushwork in rich hues build on each other to form beautiful fields of all-over abstraction. Born in East Germany, Moritz immigrated to West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and currently lives in Cologne with her husband Gerhard Richter. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout Europe, including shows at Kunsthalle, Rostock, Germany; Kunsthalle, Bremerhaven, Germany; Serpentine Gallery, London; Von der Heydt-Kunsthalle, Wuppertal-Barmen, Germany; Art@GoldenSquare, London; and Foundation de 11 Lignen, Oudenburg.