As well as painting canvases based on photographic images since 1989, Richter has also painted actual photographs to create works. In doing so, he has emphasised the surface reality of the pain interacting with the forms in the photographs. In this serial work, Richter has used six identical prints of a photograph, which consists of a triple exposure of the artist standing in his studio. On each successive print, he applied more and more paint using a squeegee and a brush, so that the final work disappears completely, as does his studio. Only paint remains – perhaps representing the artist’s notorious unwillingness to reveal himself.