It is with great pleasure that bendixen contemporary art welcomes you to a solo exhibition by the German-Russian painter Waldemar Zimbelmann (1984). The exhibition has been curated in co-operation with the visual artists Alexander Tovborg.
At the State Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe Waldemar Zimbelmann has within a short amount of time drawn attention to his sensitive paintings. With his baroque and subtle tales in indefinable sceneries, he touches the viewer in a rare and unique way.
With the exhibition Poor Memory Waldemar Zimbelmann demonstrates how well he masters the art of painting a sentiment – evoke a feeling – without being attached to an unambiguous story. It is obvious the style is expressionistic, with references to famous Nordic painters such as ex. Edvard Munch, Jens Søndergaard og Edvard Weie. Zimbelmann’s motives, often portraying one or two people in common sceneries, are painted with light and sloppy strokes. Flat, two-dimensional figures are, without any unambiguous explanation, mixed with sculptural, three-dimensional figures – as if the volume of the figures gives them their historical weight. In line with classic expressionist style the earthy colors are dominating but constantly hold in check by clear blue, red, green, yellow and white colors. Zimbelmann’s paintings are in a literary and figurative sense moving in a field of tension between the dark and light side of the palette.
An important aspect of Zimbelmann’s artistic work is his emigration background. Although his ancestors originally came from Germany, they had to move to Russia, where Waldemar was born. When his is six years old the family moves back to Germany – but the feeling of ‘coming home’ fails to appear. Instead they realize that they are strangers wherever they are, they don’t belong in either country. Zimbelmann’s paintings reflect upon the process of a mental immigration, where memories often are lost in the attempt to establish new human affiliation.
Waldemar Zimbelmann, born in 1984 in Agadyr, Russia, now lives and works in Karlsruhe, Germany. Currently he is studying at the State Academy of Fine Arts under professor Erwin Gross, where he in 2007 received a first prize for his artistic work. Zimbelmann will at his first solo show in Copenhagen be showing large paintings and small paper works.