Gabi Ehmann

Biography

I was born in 1968 and grew up in southern Germany. In 1991, I moved to Hamburg, and since then, the north has become my home. I love the heath, the flat land, and the many bodies of water. As a result, many of my abstract paintings remind me of landscapes and water surfaces.

I have been painting since my youth, but there were also years of hiatus. In 2021, I discovered my passion for abstract art and threw myself into a new intense creative process. In my studio, I forget everything around me, completely immersing myself in the work and the creative process. This 'flow' in which I find myself gives me infinite energy and joy of life.

I love abstract art because I usually only decide which color tones and materials I want to use in my next work, and then it starts with just a touch of pre-planning. With the first traces left by the paint on the canvas, I enter into a world inherent in the painting itself. I often start with rather random applications of color, which give rise to associations or themes that I further develop. It is precisely these interrelationships between randomness and targeted control that characterize my work.

I prefer to paint with acrylic paints. In some works, I also use spackle, leaf metal, pigments, collage elements, oil pastels, or ink. I apply the paint with a variety of tools such as squeegees, spatulas, sponges, rollers, brushes, rakes, and other tools. Playing with contrasts, I create different layers of color: translucent, pastose, gradient, rubbed, scratched, randomly poured, stenciled, sprayed. I don't want to set any limits for myself or the viewer.

And I wish that viewers of my works discover their own world in them with their own associations and emotions.