Untitled, 1980s

Untitled, mid 1980s, Paint and mixed media on canvas, 104.5 × 104.5 cm

Part of a large series of paintings begun in the early 1980s, and in some cases completed in the early 1990s, these paintings explore themes intrinsically linked to the motif of the cross (as an intersection between life and death but also as an interruption of a line of continuity), the barrier or border (thus questioning the division imposed by the wall), and dissolve into abstract details of scratches and graffiti that seem to mimic spontaneous gestures on that very same surface of the separating wall.

(…) Across his works, Rehfeldt often employed subtly modulated colors to produce a visual field that shifts between intimations of surface and depth. Patches of beige and tan punch through the deep brown field of Untitled (mid-1980s), while partially broken lines of red and blue paint offset the balance provided by the quadratic format. Towards the center top, a closed loop, an eyelet or noose, turns the cross back on itself. (Inter Alios, Inter Alia: Robert Rehfeldt Between Mail Art and Painting – Christopher Williams-Wynn).