We are most grateful to Mr. Michael Trier for his assistance.

'Nothing is so effective as Raster pictures when it comes to destroying the naive acceptance of technical pictures as depicting 'things from the world on a flat surface.' - Sigmar Polke

Oscillating between a painterly, metallic ground and a precise arrangement of Raster dots, the present work is exemplary of Sigmar Polke’s play with optical effects. Synthesising the artist’s experimentations with alchemy and his Raster technique, the iridescent surface of the composition fluctuates under light and motion. The variegated paint application of the background draws the viewer's gaze past the image registered in Raster dots.

A trained stained glass worker, Polke’s preoccupation with the effects of light, transparency and translucency infiltrate his prolific artistic output. Exemplary of this concern, the luminous pearlescent ground of the present work gives the painting a fluid quality. Caught between the fore-and back-ground, the viewer is entwined with Polke’s hallucinatory universe. The painterly drips bleed through from beneath the artist’s precise intervention, through his alchemic experiments Polke creates a mesmerizingly hallucinatory portrait and challenges the truth of imagery.