KATRIN BREMERMANN

Born and raised in Bremen, Katrin Bremermann is an itinerant self-taught artist. Since first leaving Germany at the age of 18, the free-spirited artist has lived in Santa Monica, New York, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Tokyo; she currently resides in Berlin. Bremermann has dabbled in sailing and the restaurant business, among other pursuits, and entered the field of art without any institutional training.

Katrin Bremermann’s art is abstract and minimalist, featuring interconnected organic shapes painted in a single colour. Each work plays on perceptions of colour, space, surface, and boundaries through contrasts and illusions created by form and the interaction between positive and negative space. They question not only the language of painting, but also the experience of viewing.

A self-described ‘painting sculptress’, Katrin Bremermann’s works have increasingly developed a strong three-dimensional presence. Breaking loose of painting and drawing’s conventionally flat rectangular form, her more recent wall objects in particular intrude into the viewer’s space.

Shaped canvases are a key ingredient of paintings by Katrin Bremermann. Artists, such as Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Barnett Newman, and Richard Tuttle pioneered this approach, however Bremerman’s paintings present a unique relationship between illusionistic and real dimensionality.

Bremermann’s lacquer drawings also treat paper as a sculptural material. She works on both sides of paper, allowing lines and marks to remain partially visible, before waxing the paper to make it more transparent. The resulting background has a texture evocative of concrete or marble floor, which contrasts with the enamel forms applied on top.

Experimentation underlies the process of artmaking for Bremermann. Each work is produced over a period, most of which she spends sitting and observing as it takes form. She often experiments and takes inspiration from material beyond conventional paper, canvas, and paint, making works with wood, plastic, fabric, and aluminium.

Despite its apparent formalism, Katrin Bremermann’s art is highly emotional. Seeking words from literature and poetry that touch one’s heart or tell a story, Bremermann employs titles—like Cloud, Just Walking, and Palermo—that generate questions and expectations but are purposefully left unexplained by the image.

Katrin Bremermann’s artwork has been exhibited in galleries and art fairs across Europe, and in the United Kingdom and the United States. She has also been involved in larger commissioned works such as a 2011 Mural for Dorfmüller GMBH in Düsseldorf.

Katrin Bremermann Solo Exhibitions include:

Tracks, Kristof De Clercq gallery, Ghent, Belgium (2021); Entre lignes et surfaces, Goethe-Institut, Paris (2019); Katrin Bremermann, Gallery Joe, Philadelphia, (2016); IN & OUT, Galerie Martin Kudlek, Cologne (2015); Dark night, good sex and peanuts, Galerie Exit Art Contemporain, Boulogne, France (2012).

Katrin Bremermann Group Exhibitions include:

Die Form, BcmA Berlin (2020); Gradation, Patrick Heide Contemporary, London (2019); Nouvelles acquisitions, Musée des Beaux-arts d’Anger, Angers, France (2017); Ellipse, A3 gallery - Municipal Gallery Moscow (2014); Off Line On Mark, Parallel Art Space, Bushwick, US (2014); Chic Dessin, Galerie Exit Art, Boulogne, France (2010).

Michael Irwin | Ocula | 2021