JOHANNES TIEPELMANN / SCHULE / 16.05. – 20.06.2009

Exhibition views (please click on the image to enlarge):

Since ancient times the portrait has the task to let humans be present, based on the similarity between archetype and image. Johannes Tiepelmann is personally tributing his current theme "SCHULE" to the portrait: Merely four genre paintings will be exhibited alongside a large number of portraits.

Tiepelmann portrays people who only exist in his imagination; other paintings display friends, family members or fellows and even strangers. By portraying strangers - who appeared only for a short time in his life - he gives these encounters constancy.

Asked about the exhibition title, Tiepelmann points out a formal problem: "Actually, I would have to give myself various names, to reveal the title "SCHULE". Five different handwritings can be found in these painting - which refer to five different parts of myself." Tiepelmann's exhibition will resemble an art school circuit. Imagine several students share one studio: A nude is presented next to a portrait and the portrait next to a historical painting; one is painted in a realistic way, another only schematized. Strictly speaking, the artist's current work theme "SCHULE" is rather an experiment than a series. Various artistic expressions are offered to the viewer, but all of them unmistakably relate to Johannes Tiepelmann.

The new works are painted in oil and no longer in acrylic. A strong materiality is thereby achieved by the artist, impressively to be seen in the eyes of the displayed. The eye itself is a central element in Tiepelmann's work. It comes across at Cyclops, or as an illusion, painted on the eyelids of a child.

(Text by Sandra Kühn, April 2009)