Stephan Baumkötter - Recent Works

Stephan Baumkötter: Recent Works was a solo exhibition at Bartha Contemporary, 7 Ledbury Mews North, Notting Hill, London, from 3 to 19 May 2022. It was the German painter's third solo exhibition with the gallery, after 2007 and 2014, and paired three new paintings in oil paint-stick on paper with a group of four small canvases. The exhibition listing was illustrated with Untitled (2020), oil paint-stick on paper, 90 x 130 cm.

Baumkötter was born in Münster in 1958 and lives and works in Cologne. He has used oil paint-sticks since 1991 and soft pastels since 1995. He applies the paint by hand, drawing line after line and rubbing each layer into the surface, so the colour comes out of the build-up of layers rather than from mixing. The works first look monochrome; over time they show structure and shifts of colour, and they change with the light in the room. The new paintings on paper are made on a hard surface and sit within a border of white paper that refers to their support.

He began the new work while looking back on his time working with Donald Judd in Marfa and an extended residency at the Albers Foundation in Bethany. An interview with Niklas von Bartha on the gallery's journal accompanied the exhibition.