Since May 26th, an exhibition of expressive paintings by Christopher Lehmpfuhl from Hamburg, Berlin and Northern Germany has been on view in the Barlach Halle K in Hamburg. The artist is represented by the Berlin Galerie Kornfeld, which presented Lehmpfuhl amongst others in 2017 in the solo exhibition Berlin in Mind präsentierte.
Image above: Elbphilharmonie am Abend, 2019, 180 x 150 cm
Christopher Lehmpfuhl’s paintings tell of the ecstasy of an immediate experience of reality, of the act of seeing and of the transformation of what has been seen into painting. The artist paints without exception in front of the motif. He moves highly concentrated between canvas, buckets of paint and palette with his clothes smeared with paint, repeatedly looking at his motif, stepping back, and then applying the paint to the canvas with his bare hands with targeted movements. The result is three-dimensional color reliefs of high haptic quality.
Starting from his hometown Berlin, the artist expands the circle of his motifs on journeys at home and abroad: cityscapes, fields, forests, the sea, the mountains; in summer, in winter, in sunshine and glowing heat as well as in rain or icy cold in the snow. He is at home in Berlin and a frequent guest in Hamburg. Motifs from both cities, supplemented by North German coastal and island landscapes, are the focus of the Hamburg exhibition.
The performative act of painting by Christopher Lehmpfuhl is rooted in 19th century open-air painting and Impressionism. It is an expression of individual feelings and the creative power of an artist who absorbs the atmosphere with all his senses and exposes himself to wind and weather in order to transform an overall impression of colours, light moments, light moods, sounds, smells and feelings into painting. In the works with Hamburg motifs, created in February 2019 during rain and almost hurricane-like gusts, the energy of the storm finds its direct expression in the moving surfaces. Other works show wintry scenes in which the cold can be experienced almost physically, or the glistening brightness of sunlight.
Christopher Lehmpfuhl, former master student of Klaus Fußmann at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, has received numerous awards, including a scholarship from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the GASAG Kunstpreis Berlin. On the 20th anniversary of German reunification in 2009, the artist was commissioned to paint the 16 federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The works of Christopher Lehmpfuhl are shown at exhibitions in institutions, museums and galleries in Germany and abroad, most recently at the Rudolf Stolz Museum in Sexten and the Marburger Kunstverein. The Museum Würth in Künzelsau is organizing a solo exhibition for him in autumn 2019.
Christopher Lehmpfuhl
Hamburg – Berlin
WHEN?
Sunday, May 26th – Sunday, June 16th 2019
Tue-Sun, 11 am – 6 pm
WHERE?
Barlach Halle K Hamburg
Klosterwall 13
20095 Hamburg
