Research and development. Is grief a state of confusion?

It is interesting that whilst I have been researching how affect through paintings and other artistic works can manifest itself in the form of grief, my investigation of Anselm Kiefer and his works have led me on to the artistic properties of one of his peers, and possibly one of his mentors. I am talking about Gerhardt Richter. In his paintings it seems that Richter is trying to set up in people's minds a situation of confusion. This confusion when analysed in more critical ways can suggest that what he is exploring is a sense of loss.

Gerhard Richter, 2007

For example Gerhardt Richter's painting "city life" 2007, is actually made from a photograph of one of the larger cities, I'm not sure which one, perhaps it either New York, or Munich or Hamburg. In reality it is not important which city, but the point of what he has done to the photograph depicting this cityscape is to literally run strokes of paint from left to right across the image in order to blank the photograph out. There are certain areas where the picture can still be seen through, but the majority of it is in fact a masked.

The idea that this stroke of paint is considered as representational, it can also be used to blank something out. When a stroke of paint is used to blank out something, other manifestations and ideas can be articulated.

I've also noticed that a similar theme seems to be arising in the works of Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger, and she creates similar paintings that I want to explore further.

Conclusions;

• A stroke of paint does not have to be representational
• a stroke of paint can blank something out
• to blank something out is a metaphor for blanking a memory out
• presence and absence?
• Heidegger's theory of present and non-present.