Hans-Hendrik Grimmling (*1947 in Zwenkau near Leipzig) is one of the most important painters of his generation in Germany, an initiator of the legendary First Leipzig Autumn Salon in 1984, regarded as a milestone exhibition in non-conformist GDR art. For more than 40 years, he has been painting at the fringes of abstraction. He is preoccupied with the experience of letting go, detaching himself from the figurative and the narrative, from East German identity, thus breaking away from predetermined physical forms. Grimmling visualizes his prime concern: the drama, the struggle, and the tragedy of human existence. Large areas, wide swaths and interlinked bands of black stretch