Kilian Breier's chemically produced photograph is an example of the type of unique cameraless pictures for which he is known, beautifully balancing expressive freedom on the one hand and mechanical control on the other. Created in the darkroom by flowing layers of developer on a piece of photographic paper, it is reminiscent of the delicate veil-like drips in the stain paintings of his American contemporaries Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. Breier was a member of the so-called Subjektive Fotografie movement, which emphasized using experimental techniques to make graphic black-and-white pictures such as this that straddle the line between objective representation and abstraction.

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