Artists

Bernd Ribbeck Born in 1974 in Cologne | Lives and works in Berlin

Portrait

Bernd Ribbeck

Bernd Ribbeck
Fotograf: Ben Kaufmann

Bernd Ribbeck’s modestly formatted paintings open up a fascinating depth and aura of color and form. The intimacy of his paintings is substantiated by a palette dominated by dark tones and a multilayered complexity in the areas of color.

The application of acrylic paint on fiberboard, the sanding of the surface, and the scoring with color ballpoint pens and pigmented markers create a tension between blurred, open areas and geometric lines. The symmetrically arranged formations, constrained by the picture format, speak of something beyond their bounds solely through an inner lumination that Ribbeck achieves through stark contrasts and the use of white, yellow, and orange tones.

Bernd Ribbeck rediscovers the aesthetic strategies of Modernism with these dense pictures. He cites the imagery of an outsider like Swedish theosophist Helma af Klint and the deconstructive works of Feininger or Delaunay. Ribbeck refers to other systems of thought and belief by incorporating the imagery of the past, presenting his hermetic work as representative of other mindsets.

Education

2000 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1995–1999 Hochschule der Künste, Berlin
Akademie der bildenden Künste, Munich
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1994–1995 Universität zu Cologne

Solo exhibitions (selection)

2012 Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich
2010 Galerie Kamm, Berlin
Ben Kaufmann, Berlin (with Alois Corbaz)
2009 Harris Liebermann, New York
Alison Jacques Gallery, London
Ich und Du, Oldenburger Kunstverein (with Claudia Wieser), Oldenburg

Group exhibitions (selection)

2011 The Cosmos of Rudolf Steiner, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart
2010 Rudolf Steiner & Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
2009 Slow Paintings, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
2008 Manifesta 7, Trentino, Südtirol, Italy
2007 Compilation III, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf