There is tremendous strength in Dienst’s paintings. A small, invented sign is repeated across the surface until writing becomes rhythm, rhythm becomes field, and the field begins to carry colour. Painter, writer and critic, Dienst brought these activities extraordinarily close together. His Kürzel, a calligraphic sign emptied of fixed meaning, becomes the point at which writing passes into painting.

Rolf-Gunter Dienst: Gemälde und Zeichnungen 1962–1988
Jens-Christian Jensen, Kunsthalle zu Kiel, 1988
139 pp.