Uta Reinhardt

The confusion that Reinhardt skilfully creates in her scenes develops
from the pure unselfconsciousness with which the figure of the diver
joins the no less usual people in an unusual context, for example.
Reinhardt’s figures personify feelings and positions: exhaustion and
astonishment, reflectiveness and grief, exasperation and boredom,
fear and surprise, discomfort and determination, energetic action...

The confusion that Reinhardt skilfully creates in her scenes develops
from the pure unselfconsciousness with which the figure of the diver
joins the no less usual people in an unusual context, for example.
Reinhardt’s figures personify feelings and positions: exhaustion and
astonishment, reflectiveness and grief, exasperation and boredom,
fear and surprise, discomfort and determination, energetic action and
paralysing hesitation – these terms could be used to translate some
of the painterly representations into language. In this case ‘painterly’
means: developed from the logic of the treatment of colour, rather than
figuratively constructed or symbolically exaggerated. This often takes
place in a pictorial architecture that is sketched out in a small number of
surfaces and lines. It is sufficient to create moments of subliminal tension
without falling back on iconographic set pieces. Reinhardt ‘abstracts’
for our eyes, which are oversaturated by the media, by peeling off layers
of meaning in patient repetition. Her understanding of the figure as a
representative of various possible positions available to humans (habitus)
should be understood against the background of this underlying
feature. Her figures emerge from the various colour and subject areas
of the individual paintings; this is the justification for their position. In
Porchia’s terms, one could say that they are not literal or metaphorical
reflections of something, or of somebody. They are themselves.
Text by Peter Kohlhaas