'Gerhard Richter: The Life of Images' exhibition: the works on show

"Gerhard Richter: The Life Of Images" brings together over 90 Richter works from around the globe, and is the first retrospective of the artist's collective oeuvre in Australia. The exhibition runs until February 4 at Brisbane's Gallery Of Modern Art.

Born in Dresden in 1932, the Second World War would define Richter's early years – and that of his entire country. His Uncle Rudi (pictured) would perish and his Aunt Marianne died in a concentration camp as part of the Nazi's extermination program against the mentally ill.

Richter enrolled in Dresden's Academy of Fine Arts and made a name for himself painting socialist murals on public buildings. However, he'd secretly begun experimenting with a new form of photorealism, inspired by ephemeral images in magazines.

Despite his desire to push into new artistic terrain, Richter remained inspired by the historic Germanic tradition of landscape painting, epitomised by artists such as Casper David Friedrich, and manifested in key works such as "Meadowland."

Richer has been married three times, and has often painted his direct family members as part of his exploration into photo realism. Here he presents a portrait of his daughter Ella. "I'm not trying to imitate a photograph," the artist would write in 1972. "I'm trying to make one."

His sudden shift from figuration to abstraction in the 1970s would catch the art world unawares, but eventually prove popular. "Abstraktes Bild" (1986) sold for 30.4 million pounds (€34 million) in 2015. The "Birkenau" suite (pictured) brings figuration and abstraction together to document one of the darkest periods in German history: the Holocaust.

While calling himself a "traditional painter," Richter continues to experiment with innovative new forms today, as evidenced in "Strip," a work from 2012 – which is a digital synthesis of previous works. On suggestion that it resembled wrapping paper Richter smirked and replied: "Yes, isn't it wonderful."

In Richter's work – as in his life – the light is often countered by the dark, and in works such as "Birkenau" and the "October" cycle, he investigates some of history's bleaker chapters. In 2009, he would turn his attention to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.

Much of Richter's body of work is a process of self-examination. "I have always been unsure with myself and my work, and had many doubts," the artist explains of his shift between visual paradigms. "I started to experiment very early on, because I wanted to prove to myself what I was capable of," he told DW.