VERNISSAGE / Andreas Grellmann / »PITRODE«

In the organizer's words:

Introduction
Marco Carini

Andreas Grellmann comes across as a rock in the surf and yet he is a very sensitive artist. For him, his art has become a purpose in life or a center of life. This development began in his hometown of Karl-Marx-Stadt, which is now called Chemnitz again. Born in 1961, he went to school there and it was in the city that he learned to have an eye for art. He took his first steps towards composition, materials and techniques.

After 1989, new career opportunities took him from Berlin to Hamburg, more precisely Bergedorf. In 1994, he chose the Schaalsee region in north-western Mecklenburg as the center of his life. Life in the slightly hilly landscape appeals to him and inspires him in his art. However, the discrepancy between the obligation to earn a living as a designer and the desire for free art made him lean more and more towards freedom. Around 2010, the focus of his work shifted towards free art - eventually he gave up interior design altogether.

Grellmann finds his way into the public eye with his art. He explores his creativity and finds inspiration in like-minded groups. In the large-format acrylic paintings on paper he has created since then, we see sketchy groups of people in carefully thought-out compositions in dark, reduced tones.

People, often painted as nudes, move in constellations that are sometimes reminiscent of Hans von Marées, transferred into the expressiveness of Alfred Kubin. We see scenes from the close interpersonal sphere. In the more recent pictures, the intimacy of the situation is broken up and the events are transferred to urban spaces in which games of communication and power take place. Formally, Andreas Grellmann's pictures develop from symbolically strict compositions to a freer perspective, fleeting in appearance and precise in the depiction of the essential.

Photos: © private