Rolf-Gunter Dienst: Frühe Bilder und Gouachen

Since the 1960s, Rolf-Gunter Dienst has created a distinct body of work within the contemporary German art scene. His works have become known for their singular appearance with scriptural shortcuts – the so called ‘Kürzel’: intensively examining and describing the linear division of painting as a colour-based visual phenomenon. 
Since the beginning, the ‘Kürzel’ have been the central structural element of Dienst's oeuvre. For the young artist they worked as a representational way of inner organisation, of a possibility to part ways with the emotion and gestural spontaneity of Art Informel and thus allow the creation of a new gestural abstraction.
The ‘Kürzel’, one after another, step after step, are creating lines, grids and overlays in coloured rhythms that seem to dance in front of the viewer's eyes. With their size, density, parallelism or looseness, they set the pace and the visibility of the individual hues.