Betty

Gerhard Richter (1988)

Painted a year before the Berlin Wall came down, this is a staggering, hyper-real reproduction of a photo of the artists daughter from ten years before. That in itself suggests an attempt to halt time and hold on to what matters, but is also a labyrinthine comment on the act of seeing. We see so clearly here, but not the subject, who turns away to look at another of her fathers works… The blurring of the subject looks like the visual equivalent of gentle radio interference, but the detail on her jacket is exquisite, and the light seems to caress her hair like a tender benediction. There might be something frustratingly enigmatic about the way she is turned away, but the infinite attention to every fibre of clothing, every strand of hair, brings meaning, context, and love to the most innocuous moment, resulting in a picture that urges us to find miracles of possibility and beauty in the detailed fabric of everyday life.