Pat Steir's unique position as one of our most important living painters is evidenced not only by the fact that she has created an immense body of work that is exhibited in the world's most well-known museums, the strength of which can be measured in relation to the finest works of art history, but that she has developed a tangible philosophy that is both visual and sensual. This book offers new insight into a previously unexplored aspect of this oeuvre: Pat Steir's capacity for transforming paint into space. Not only does the artist generate space through painting, but she also constructs spatial compositions, creating a visual continuum of panoramic space through mural painting or by directly inserting her paintings into nature and architecture: Pat Steir explores painting in all its dimensions. Author Doris von Drathen confronts this extended pictorial world and asks anew timeless existential questions regarding how space and its borders are conceived, how we arrive at a notion of the "other side," and how such inquiries sharpen our sense of reality.