What exactly makes the perfect picture? This is a question that young Christoph Luger asked himself and to which he devoted himself intensively. On a sheet of paper he wrote down in the form of short notes all the important things that make a picture optimal from his point of view. "It must be airy, it must have depth, but not take place on a surface, etc." These were keywords that populated the paper and Christoph Luger painted alongside them, transferring his ideas, his thoughts and his premises for this one painting to his painting. After three years it was so far: a white picture! A picture which, as he says today, he never really understood, but which united all the cues in itself. The written sheet was full, the painted picture was ready.
This story describes in a very beautiful narrative way how Christoph Luger approaches his work. His pictures emerge slowly, with deliberation. Always with a critical eye, always with this urge for perfection.
They are works on paper, delicate structures, fragile in their nature and yet so strong in expression. The paper is attached flat to the wall - tacked - and then worked: visible are pencil marks, large and small sweeping brushstrokes that apply a liquid glue paint on the picture ground, injuries inflicted by the tearing of the paper or the fragility of the image carrier by the wetness of the paint and overgluing. Layers overlap and, like a delicate curtain, the view opens onto what is underneath, what has gone before. Once his work is complete, once it is considered finished in the eyes of the artist, the paper is removed from the wall and, as in this case of the exhibition, framed in an equally fine iron frame. The fresco - as which it was created - becomes a portable picture. Portable, to hang in different places, but in part no less small. Thus Christoph Luger shows with his work "untitled" from 2012 with 240x390 cm an impressive wall painting held in red tones. If the visitor lets himself in on the work, he dives into the pictorial space, immerses himself in the rush of color and becomes part of a great whole.
Again and again writings can be deciphered on the works. The dates are sometimes written in pencil on the picture background as an aid, but it is not the year of creation, because, according to the artist, "I sometimes paint for years on the works, take them again and again to the hand and continue to work. A new year is then added somewhere."
Christoph Luger's works are profound. The time that the artist gives his works to emerge is an important factor, which is why the viewer is also encouraged to take time to look at the works, because then reveal all those layers and colors that have painted the wall as a fresco with deliberation and benevolence - a delicate, contemporary form of space Colourfield - Painting.
