GAMA is a painter based in Berlin. He is known for his fairytale landscapes and fantastical creatures rendered in stark tones, inspired by folk tales and his childhood in Inner Mongolia, where shamanism is widely practiced.
Read MoreBorn in Mongolia, GAMA grew up in nature, raised by nomads who moved every season. As a child, the artist was influenced by his aunt, a shaman said to reside between the physical and the spiritual world. The idea of motion and the in-between would be recovered in GAMA's paintings.
GAMA studied oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing (1996—2000) before moving to Karlsruhe, Germany. Drawn to European Old Masters and contemporary painters like Georg Baselitz, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter, GAMA enrolled at the Karlsruhe State Academy of Fine Arts (2002—2007). There he studied under Gustav Kluge, who is known for stark figurative paintings enquiring into violence and the human condition.
GAMA's paintings depict mythological characters—headless figures, wild mushrooms, deer—recovered from religious symbolism and his native landscapes. Brightly coloured, yet somber and evocative of decay, they draw from Buddhist imagery and childhood narratives to contend with spiritual experience.
Imagery of deer—an animal considered sacred in many religions and the guardian at the gates between two worlds in shamanism—is prevalent across GAMA's work, at once symbolic and a vehicle for the imagination. Deer of Nine Colours 8 (2016), a mixed-media painting on canvas, recreates the gentle creature in front of a rainbow gate, while in A Knight in Paradise Lost II (2019), the animal is rendered as a cadaver, with hands in place of its front hooves. The creature's appearance varies according to the artist's mood.
While embedded in fantasy, GAMA's paintings are veiled in a layer of realism, showing headless subjects and detailed spaces that invite viewers to imagine themselves in their place. In Das Tor III (2016), a mixed-media painting depicting magician's clothing hovering beside an open portal, the subject is absent from the composition, while the landscape beyond is clear and vivid.
Likewise, Princess's Dream (2019), a painting showing a stack of brightly coloured mattresses in reference to the story of the princess tasked with feeling a buried pea in her sleep, distances itself from the narrative by drawing attention to the physical quality of the space using texture.
Presiding over the body of work is a desire to return to the past, the recovery of folktales, and the use of bright colours, which often represent purity and childhood innocence. Waldbühne (Scene in the Woods) (2014), a painting depicting the fairytale interiors of a wooden cabin, is permeated with a sense of realism despite the neon pink frame and the bright purple and green splatters on the ground and across the walls.
Motifs of circularity and return as expressed through portals, mushrooms, and riders further allude to passage and reincarnation in Buddhism. Rückkehr II (Return II) (2016) exemplifies this need to return not only in body but in spirit, showing a headless rider against a vivid landscape.
GAMA's works have been featured in exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Select solo exhibitions include Budenzauber, Galerie Michael Schultz, Berlin (2018); Fata Morgana, Chambers Fine Art, Beijing (2017); Idylls of the Kings, Chambers Fine Art, New York (2015); Stelldichein, Galerie Frank Schlag & Cie, Essen (2013); Das Fest, Städtisches Museum Engen + Galerie, Germany (2012); Die Zimmer, Galerie Michael Fuchs, Berlin (2012); Vorort, Playstation Fons Welters, Amsterdam (2008); and Malerei, Galerie Gerken, Berlin (2006).
Select group exhibitions include Chambers Review II, Chambers Fine Art, New York (2019); Up, In, Out and Away: Painting Across Landscapes, Pace University, New York (2017); Art Basel Hong Kong (2015); Landschaftsgänger, Parrotta Contemporary Art, Stuttgart (2013); Schach!!, Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr (2011); Hotspot Berlin, Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (2010); Produzentenallergie, Plattform für neue Kunst, Karlsruhe (2006); and oiltanking, INTERprojekte, Berlin (2006).
In 2022, Chambers Fine Art showed the exhibition _Betwixt _featuring artists GAMA and Siyuan Tan.
Elaine YJ Zheng | Ocula | 2021
