I'm glad your reply ended up longer than you intended! I simply hadn't considered your comparison in your main paragraph. Also I looked up Gerhard Richter. This stuff is incredible. I looked at this one and thought "so it's just a blurry photograph, right?" Until I saw "oil on canvas". That's incredible. I was convinced that was just a photograph that was a little out of focus. I then looked at his Wikipedia page and it talks a little about his reason for blurring his paintings. I can definitely see myself getting into this guy's work. I'll be looking into Jeff Koons as well! Cheers!
I was actually referring to the more abstract works he does like this: but the argument still holds. He actually uses squeegees for both types of painting, so while one is realistic and the other is abstract, to use a bad cliché "they're two sides of the same coin". The process needed for a single work of art is more deep than most people realize and I hope you find inspiration in looking at the difficult processes that modern art hides a little more.