"Himmel & Leib" / "heaven & body"

About

Thomas Gatzemeier : painting and graphics

Photography byHorst Kistner

No school and no style associated with the works Gatzemeiers are characterized by a dual nature , the Apollonian and the Dionysian , the Eros and Thanatos . He owes the mastery of his drawing and painting techniques to his unique education. He learned - the now extinct - craft of script and poster painting before studying painting and graphics at the HGB Leipzig under Arno Rink and Volker Stelzmann . At the time the "Academy of the 19th century ", offering subjects such as anatomy and perspective, today one of the many academies in Germany. Even before being expatriated in 1986, he got rid of the shackles of the purely academic and took part in a frenzy of painting that created clearly structured compositions. Gatzemeier resisted the genius gesture and built his paintings layer by layer into an organic pigment. The figure is rarely lost in these seemingly abstract paintings but always becomes a base impulse of his work. After this excessive excursion into the world of body phantoms and convulsive color structures his images become clearer and his drawings conquer back the room.

Gatzemeier’s exhibition at the Michaela Helfrich Galerie in Berlin-Neukölln is the first exhibition of his works in the city. The painter has invited a photographer of the old school, Horst Kistner to exhibit his images in tandem with his painting “The Gardener”.  Kistner’s sensual, often melancholic compositions are unique photographs that are painted through light.