BRIXY – WANDERLUST
Exhibition at Palazzo Bembo, Venice
With his exhibition WANDERLUST, on view from 13 September to 11 October 2026 at the renowned Palazzo Bembo near the Rialto Bridge and running parallel to Biennale Arte 2026, Dietmar Brixy presents a multifaceted panorama between dream and reality. The exhibition forms part of Personal Structures - Confluences, the international exhibition organised by the European Cultural Centre Italy.
With WANDERLUST, Dietmar Brixy returns to Venice. His works were already presented at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana on St Mark’s Square in 2024. The exhibition attracted approximately 27,000 visitors. Two years later, Brixy now devotes an extensive presentation at Palazzo Bembo to a theme that has accompanied his work for many years: the longing for departure, transformation and inner expansiveness.
Wanderlust as an Inner Attitude
The title refers to a term that originated in German and has long since entered several European languages. Originally deeply rooted in Romantic ideas of nature, movement and self-discovery, wanderlust describes less a concrete destination than an inner attitude: the desire to set out and to experience the journey itself. In Brixy’s paintings, this attitude becomes visible in gestural traces, concentrations and movements of colour that lead through unknown terrain like paths.
For Dietmar Brixy, the term wanderlust therefore describes far more than the desire to travel or to leave a geographical location. It represents an inner attitude between dream and reality, between memory and expectation, between the familiar and the still unknown. Wanderlust begins where certainties are set in motion. It describes the desire to cross existing boundaries, to allow new perspectives and to engage with experiences whose destination has not yet been determined.
Brixy’s painting is an expression of this movement. His images do not lead to clearly identifiable places. Instead, they open spaces in which external landscape and inner perception merge. Memories, travel experiences, observations of nature and imagination combine to form multilayered visual worlds that oscillate between figuration and abstraction, depth and surface, stillness and dynamism.
Horizons emerge and disappear again. Lines rise, develop into loops, currents and forms reminiscent of vegetation, or lead the eye into an indeterminate distance. Fields of colour overlap, condense and break open once more. In this way, landscapes emerge that depict less a concrete place than a particular state of being.
Wanderlust, 2026, oil on canvas, 210 x 160 cm
Between Journey and Wanderlust
The exhibition brings together works from the Journey and Wanderlust series in particular. Both revolve around movement, perception and transformation, while placing different emphases.
With the Journey series, Brixy developed a contemporary form of landscape painting that does not aim to reproduce a specific place. Instead, landscape appears as a multilayered pictorial space in which memory, experience and imagination merge.
Layered horizons, luminous fields of colour and relief-like applications of paint create an impression of depth, expansiveness and movement. Linear courses rise, condense into loops and currents, or guide the eye through the image. The materiality of the paint always remains visible. It does not merely describe landscape, but shapes it as a physically perceptible space. Wanderlust continues this exploration and focuses more strongly on the moment of departure. It addresses the longing for distant places, but also the question of what happens when one leaves a familiar state without yet knowing what lies ahead. In this sense, it is not an escape, but rather represents openness, curiosity and a willingness to be transformed. The journey does not only lead through external spaces. It also becomes an encounter with one’s own perception.
Journey, 2023, Öl auf Nessel, 120 x 300 cm
Condensed Visual Worlds – The Bubbles
A further emphasis within the exhibition is provided by a concentrated presentation of Brixy’s characteristic Bubble paintings. In their circular formats, the painting condenses into independent, self-contained visual worlds.
The circular form has neither a clear beginning nor an end. It directs the gaze inwards and allows colour, movement and structure to circulate as if within a cosmos of their own. Vegetal forms, luminous fields of colour and relief-like surfaces combine to create compositions that evoke growth, nature, energy and continuous transformation.
Within WANDERLUST, the Bubbles appear like painterly concentrates. While the large-format works open into the distance and guide the eye through multilayered landscapes, the circular works concentrate movement and perception within a limited space. They invite the viewer to pause and discover the subtle transitions, overlaps and material traces of paint at close range. At the same time, they take up a central idea of the exhibition: every journey does not proceed only in a linear direction from a starting point to a destination. It also consists of cycles, recurring memories, inner movements and moments of concentration.
Wanderlust Bamboo Bubble, 2025, oil on canvas, D 160 cm
Venice as a Space of Resonance
Palazzo Bembo provides a distinctive architectural and atmospheric setting for WANDERLUST. The historic building is located directly on the Grand Canal, opposite the Rialto Bridge. Its rooms bear the traces of different eras and enter into a dynamic dialogue with Brixy’s contemporary and physically present painting.
Venice itself is also a city of transitions. Water and architecture, movement and stillness, past and present permeate one another. Perspectives change with every step, paths end unexpectedly at the water and continue elsewhere. The city appears real and at the same time remote, familiar and mysterious, enduring yet constantly undergoing transformation.
Against this background, the title WANDERLUST acquires particular significance. The city is not merely the setting for the exhibition, but becomes a space of resonance for its central questions: What does it mean to set out? Where does a journey begin? When does external movement become an inner experience? And can pausing be just as meaningful as continuing onwards?
An Invitation to Embark on One’s Own Journey
The exhibition speaks of the longing for distant places and, at the same time, of the discovery of the self. It is about the courage to cross familiar boundaries, openness towards the unknown and those moments in which perception changes.
WANDERLUST thus becomes a journey between dream and reality, between the external world and inner experience. The focus is not on reaching a particular destination, but on the experience of being on the way.
Exhibition
BRIXY – WANDERLUST
Special Project in Personal Structures – Confluences
13 September to 11 October 2026
Palazzo Bembo
Riva del Carbon 4793
30124 Venice, Italy
Open daily from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Closed on Tuesdays
Admission free
Opening
Saturday, 12 September 2026, 5:00 pm
The opening address will be delivered by Prof. Dr Beate Reifenscheid, curator of the exhibition and Director of the Ludwig Museum Koblenz. The artist will be present.
The exhibition, initiated by the internationally renowned art expert and curator Dirk Geuer, is realised by the non-profit Association for Art in Public. As a Special Project, it forms part of the eighth edition of Personal Structures, the contemporary art exhibition organised by the European Cultural Centre Italy. Under the title Confluences, it creates spaces of encounter in a present shaped by upheaval and transformation.
