Günther Uecker: Shields (2022), the artist’s first solo exhibition at LGDR, Palm Beach, exhibited a new series of nail paintings that pushed his iconic reliefs further into new realms. To create these works, Uecker stretches canvas over thick panels of wood—extensively drawing and mark-making with paint and graphite to create dense, visceral surfaces—then hammers nails into the panels, varying their placement and groupings intuitively to form undulating painted reliefs that cast shadows in constant motion. Unified by pictorial composition and material presence, the nails project out into the space of the viewer, suggesting forces of growth and movement, unity and disruption, order and entropy.

The paintings draw on a foundation of repetitive and reparative actions that the artist has likened to meditation; the action of hammering is a steady, sonorous, and tactile operation that functions in the same vein as a mantra or prayer. The process finds its roots in Uecker’s formative years in East Germany when he witnessed one totalitarian regime replace another in the wake of the Second World War. Uecker has talked about the trauma of this period, experienced both personally and collectively—giving birth to his long lasting preoccupation with violence and suffering, as well as spiritual fulfillment and joy. In creating this new series, Uecker reflects on the current state of the world and views these paintings as a poetic prayer of hope.

“Shield”

Pictures painted like shields
in seclusion
in the workshop
in Speechlessness—
The painting begins
where speech fails:
in the perception
of world and of violence;
in a chain of experiences,
interdependencies noted;
recognition of mutual
dependency amid shared danger
pictorially
As revolt,
in the mode of a call—
to pacify violence
and preserve life
—Günther Uecker, 2022