Dick Berckenkamp

Dick Berckenkamp’s Whispering from the Beyond Words series translates the phenomenon of whispering into a complex visual score that moves between delicate suggestion and impulsive articulation. The work captures the essence of communication that operates not through volume, but through intensity and immediacy. Berckenkamp’s characteristic tension between matter and void becomes here a resonance space for the nearly inaudible.

The composition is dominated by a fluid, almost floating dynamic: a bright, impasto center pushes across the pictorial space like a silent gesture, while bold magenta and red tones suggest an emotional urgency. The fine, rhythmic bundles of lines on the left side act like graphic echoes or sound waves measuring the space and giving structure to the fleeting. In this paradox, Berckenkamp combines the ephemeral nature of a breath with the physical presence of a powerful brushstroke.

A stylistic comparison can also be drawn here to the gestural abstraction of Martha Jungwirth, particularly in the way physicality and space merge. Yet, while Jungwirth’s works often seek a more atmospheric dissolution, Berckenkamp maintains a graphic sharpness in Whispering. The black, filigree lines set accents reminiscent of a nervous, internal script, taming the visceral energy of the color bursts without stripping them of their dynamics.

The neutral background again serves as a silent stage that isolates the interplay of forms, thereby emphasizing their haptic quality. The interaction of biomorphic color eruption and structural line work creates a piece that reveals itself to the viewer sometimes as a gentle murmur, sometimes as a sudden confession. Whispering thus becomes a visual metaphor for those moments when the quiet unfolds the greatest power and the unspoken takes on its own unmistakable form.