"Abstract Expressionism at the Royal Academy of Arts, London" Painting

Paint-smeared studio floors are perhaps the most immediate associations one has with his pictures. Peter Vahlefeld’s painting stands in contrast to the many sleek surfaces of mass production defined by digital perfection. The physicality, the application of material, the substance, the gestures, and the texture of his painting constitute the artist’s response to a formalized, media-driven world, reflecting what is absent from our realm of consumer goods: the traces of human existence and physicality. The more abstract our work becomes, and the more time we spend in front of a screen, the greater the longing for sensuality—for oil paint and pigments. There is no flawless application of color here, as one finds on a digital surface; the physical element—materiality—is what matters. Peter Vahlefeld’s paintings constantly oscillate between digitization and material realization. What looks like paint may actually be a digital pigment print of paint—an effect that becomes even more striking when it appears alongside real oil paint. Lifting a picture out of its usual two dimensions and into a third—making it tangible, effectively "building" it—is perhaps the best way to describe his creative process. His works act as a mirror of civilization, highlighting the excess of order and the lack of discernible individual traces. We need these images to feel our own presence. If we eliminate too many traces of our being, we lose the legibility of our biography. After graduating from Parsons School of Design in 1990, Vahlefeld exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, including White Columns, Ward Nasse Gallery, and the Society of Illustrators. After relocating from New York to Berlin, his work has been presented nationally and internationally at galleries, art fairs, and institutions including Sotheby's, Neumeister, Fritz Hansen, the Allianz Art Collection, and Poliform. His paintings are held in private and corporate collections across Europe, the United States, and East Asia. Vahlefeld has also been featured on the German television network ZDF and currently maintains studios in Berlin and Munich.