The Belgian ZERO artist Jef Verheyen (1932-1984) became known as the painter of light streams and colour spectra. He experimented not only with light, but also with movement and the invisible as means to evoke natural mechanisms and to reveal universal interrelationships between human beings and the surrounding world. He used geometric principles – his passion for geometry was born out of his interest in mathematics and (Greek) philosophy – as the basis for harmony. Verheyen never gave up on traditional media and materials such as the canvas, paint, and brushes to search for the essence of our nature. 

Gerhard Richter

°1932
Born in Dresden,
Lives in Cologne,

[Gerhard Richter](http://www.gerhard-richter.com/) (1932, Germany, lives in Cologne) was educated in East Germany as a mural painter in the style of Socialist Realism. He left in 1961 and organised actions in Düsseldorf, together with Sigmar Polke, under the provocative title Capitalist Realism. Influenced by the banality of Pop Art, Richter based his paintings on photographs and blurred the still wet image to create out-of-focus effects. Later Richter would make photo-realist and abstract paintings in parallel. The content of the work may be political, as in his famous series on the German RAF terrorists, but it always also contains other, existential, dimensions.