The paintings of Markus Saile (b. Stuttgart, 1981; lives and works in Cologne) show superimposed layers of fairly dense paint and translucent glazing that intimate shapes and spaces and yet remain abstract. Now and then they reveal glimpses of the primed canvas or wood medium on which the artist works. The painting process is recognizable in scratches or traces of wiping where the paints were repeatedly applied and then partly washed off. The pictures exude a profound calm and yet seem to be in motion. Although many are in relatively small formats, they are radiantly luminous. Time and again, we think we discern something–a landscape, a particular shape–but what we see dissolves at the next instant, opening up new visual possibilites. The book is published on occasion of Markus Saile’s first solo exhibition at an institution, the Kunstverein Springhornhof Neuenkirchen. The title of the show refers to Marguerite Duras’s essay on “Non-Work” (in French, non-travail). Duras wrote that she wished to achieve a state of non-work, “[…] to create this empty space in order to allow the unforeseen, the obvious, to come.”