A German Abstract Painter Remixes the Old Masters for His First Solo Show in China

If you had to guess the inspiration behind the latest works by Enrico Bach, you’d probably think architecture and geometry. And you’d be correct, at least in part.

His medium- to large-scale abstract oil paintings are characterized by square grids, bold lines, and geometric shapes rendered in vibrant jewel tones and deep, dark blacks. In fact, the German painter has spoken of his fondness for contemporary architecture and urban structures, such as bridges and tunnels.

Bach also says he has taken inspiration from technology, both physical and digital. He’s intrigued as much by the look and feel of online graphics and user interfaces as by the shape and structure of a set of enormous speakers he spotted at a music festival in England.

But there’s another influence at play, one that’s trickier to surmise. It’s the Old Masters: Rembrandt, Velázquez, and Bellini. An art history enthusiast, Bach points to Rembrandt’s “ability to create atmospheres” and “the way he handles light and dark values, which gives his paintings a special clarity.” Likewise, Bach says, in Velázquez’s Las Meninas, “it is the various levels of the painting and the picture­‐in‐a-picture concept that interest me.”

Indeed, Bach’s abstract paintings, now featured in “With Ifs and Buts” at PIFO Gallery in Beijing, aren’t just inspired by classic paintings. According to Bach, they’re modern interpretations of those works, “remixes” of the Old Masters.

“The formal layout and the choice of colors remain the same as in the original,” Bach says. “All I do is erase the objects and the people in it by simplifying the components that make up the human figures and replacing head and torso by geometrical shapes.”