DIETMAR BRIXY | Retrospective 1991 - 2021 | Painting

The exhibition "Dietmar Brixy | Retrospective 1991 - 2021", taking place at the Tammen Gallery in Berlin, presents works by the Mannheim-based artist from the last 30 years. The exhibition runs from 3 December 2021 to 19 February 2022.

A new catalogue "REFLECT" with texts by Dorothee Baer-Bogenschütz, Dr Dietmar Schuth, Prof. Dieter Ronte, Dr Monica Jager-Schlichter and Werner Tammen is available to accompany the exhibition. Publisher: Galerie Tammen & Kunstverein Villa Streccius in Landau e.V.

Reflect, 2021, oil on canvas, 180 x 140 cm

Extract from the new REFLECT catalogue

"Fantastical seedtime-markings, a dense canopy of wonders, odes to the Dionysian, secret dabblings in the surreal, playground of nature sprites—or even mood boards for Elvis Presley’s Jungle Room at Graceland? What exactly is it that Dietmar Brixy makes in his sun-drenched studio, with its Gothic Revival architecture and views of verdant green bamboo groves, fig trees, camellias, and rare rhododendron varieties like the Blue Pe - ter? Mysterious metaphors, cryptic symbolism, serpentine beauty? Nature—be it sublimely bountiful or frenetically wild, tenderly sprouting or flagrantly expiring—seems to have an allegorical role in his art. And beyond the purely vegetal, our eye also catches glimpses of cosmic phenomena. Brixy’s paintings lead us into far-off galaxies, no matter which phase of his career or series of works they belong to. They manifest as an outlandish, bewildering but enticing mixtum compositum. They bewitch, beguile, and bemuse the beholder. Why? Because, in Victor Hugo’s words, we are confronted with far horizons of dreaming and “the contemplators are probably contemplated.” (Quote: Victor Hugo "The Wretched", Munich 1999, p. 75)"

Dorothee Baer-Bogenschütz in the exhibition catalogue REFLECT from page 45 onwards

- CLICK HERE FOR THE DIGITAL VERSION OF THE CATALOGUE - 

Brixy, Horizon, 2018, oil on canvas, 120 x 240 cm

Creative phases and working cycles of the artist Dietmar Brixy

Brixy works for the most part in working cycles, after which he titles his paintings. Thus, his works rarely have individual titles, but are named after the respective series of works. Some series are not completed and new works are added again and again. The individual cycles thus build on each other chronologically, but also influence each other anew.

From the very beginning, the line forms a central motif in Brixy's early works. As a lifeline, branching branches or even as a horizon. The essence of the line can be interpreted quite differently depending on the group of works: as the meeting of two individuals whose paths cross, as it were also as an image for setting out - setting out on the path - or as the crossing of boundaries.

ohne Titel, 1991, oil on canvas, 180 x 240 cm

These motifs are particularly strong in the avenues from the BEYOND series of works or in the perspective landscapes in HORIZON. The numerous nature motifs in his paintings have an even stronger recognition value. Intertwined branches dominate the scenes in WEINLESE, ROOTS, GROW, EDEN, DISCOVER, SURPRISE, TOMORROW, ROOM or even HAPPY. The play of light and colour creates deep, perspective levels. Luminous areas of colour form contrasts with sculpturally modelled formations.

"Brixy assumes that a work of art is a cosmos that can develop a richness within itself. But not for the artist, but for the viewer. They are works of art that are directed towards the viewer."

Prof. Dr. Dieter Ronte Former Director Museum of Modern Art Vienna, Sprengel Museum Hannover and Kunstmuseum Bonn

Allee, 2008, oil on canvas, 240 x 180 cm

About the artist Dietmar Brixy

"Born in 1961 in simple circumstances in Mannheim, Brixy developed immense creative compensatory energies from the anachronistic longing for a mythical place in the midst of the tangible beauty of nature, which he created according to his inner image. Over the past two decades, a successful artist's biography has been formed through self-responsible action. Ten years after his studies at the Karlsruhe Art Academy, Brixy realised a childhood dream in the immediate vicinity of his origins. In 2001, he acquired the Old Pumping Station Neckarau, which had been deprived of its function, carefully converted the imposing neo-Gothic industrial monument into an original art and living space over a period of two years and designed an enchanting garden landscape as a constant source of inspiration and balance. Surrounded by camellias, bamboo and magnolias, the breathtaking, almost unchanged machine hall of the pumping station has since been the setting for the large-format, strongly coloured painting expressions that have become Brixy's trademark.

This island of the blessed, shielded from everyday life and yet porous to the world, is both the starting point and the destination of an impressively powerful self-design, the resonance chamber of a self-confident claim to validity. This is where the artist returns again and again from his work trips to exotic countries. Here he regularly invites a changing public to exhibitions of his paintings, which inevitably take on an installation character in the industrial-historical ambience, which is what really brings out the eventfulness of the painting. The place determines the painting. Painting animates the place. Pathos and energy characterise both."

Dr Ulrike Lorenz former Director of the Mannheim Kunsthalle, today President of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar

Blaue Schneckenengel, 1998, oil on canvas, 180 x 240 cm