Marita Damkroger's new series of large-scale watercolors carries a clear consistency and concentration in expression. Unlike previous works, where different formal approaches could meet in one and the same pictorial space, these paintings are characterized by a methodical construction: hundreds of transparent layers of paint are placed on top of each other in layer after layer. Instead of letting the colors flow together, as in traditional watercolor technique, Damkröger keeps them separated – sealed in their respective layers. The result is a visual depth effect that is reminiscent of digital image programs, where layers can be stacked and their transparency controlled precisely.

Yet it is not a technical experiment that she is showing, but a continuation of her long-term exploration of color, line, surface and space. In the new paintings this emerges more clearly than ever: the images open up like overlapping screen windows and draw the viewer into a spatial depth where each color field, despite repetition and rhythm, carries its own identity. These are paintings that move on the border between the meditative and the precise, where each brushstroke must be applied with complete concentration – without the possibility of correction. The technique is uncompromising, but where it succeeds, a color universe with poetic power emerges.

Damkroger's work is at the same time based on a solid foundation in constructive and concrete art, with clear connections to the visual language of minimalism. But her expression is warmer, more bodily. She works only with the three primary colors – yellow, red and blue – which she applies in thin, transparent layers with a broad brush and patient rhythm. Layer after layer, sometimes twenty or thirty in a row, which are allowed to dry before the next stroke can be applied. Each layer carries the risk of breaking the whole, but when everything falls into place, the painting opens up in its own lyrical language.

Here a space of color arises where the edges sometimes form small puddles, where shimmering halos bloom and where the center of the image condenses into an inner depth – sometimes caramel-colored, sometimes moss green, sometimes eggplant. It is unknown, but alluring terrain. Built of primary colors, water, paper – and nothing more. Yet from this simple, a rich poetic expression grows, where each layer becomes a line in a quiet poem. Verse after verse, page after page