Alto Kirchhoff - 'By the Sea' - Painting

until September 15th, 2017, daily 9 - 21h

Alto Kirchhoff - 'Wave', 2017, Acrylic on Canvas, 190cm x 140

Alto Kirchhoff - 'Gusty', 2017, Acrylic on Canvas, 190cm x 140

art place berlin - forum for contemporary art - international gallery - public exhibition space

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Alto Kirchhoff - Painting

Alto Kirchhoff was born in Essen in 1955. His devotion to painting began 50 years ago. As an adolescent he was already finding inspiration in artists presented at the Museum Folkwang, such as Ernst Wilhelm Nay. He provided his creativity with a solid professional basis through his studies at the Folkwangschule (now: Folkwang University of the Arts). In 1982 he moved to the seaside – to Jade, Germany – where he steadily continued to carefully develop his painting. At the same time, he headed the design agency which he founded.

The paintings presented in the exhibition at “art place berlin” are from the series “By the Sea”, which goes back to a painting from 1984. Since 2016 Kirchhoff has once again been devoting intense attention to his work on this series, whose most essential elements are the nature of the sea, light, wind and the green grass of the coast. For Kirchhoff realising his ideas for images is an unorthodox, dynamic process that also permits spontaneity. He rapidly and expressively applies acrylic paint to the canvas. Because his painting process repeatedly generates new and surprising results, the formal intention emerges clearly only at the end of his work.

These images show Kirchhoff’s passion for painting and leave room for viewers’ interpretations and their own fantasy. He himself sees his paintings as symbioses of landscape and Art Informel, and he has adopted the wise motto: “Simple things need not be simple.” – We can look forward to more from Alto Kirchhoff.