Ta Men

Contemporary by Angela Li is proud to present Martin Wehmer’s solo exhibition – Ta Men, the first solo exhibition of the Beijing-based German artist in Hong Kong. His paintings, in thick oil paint, are snapshots of people in different states of mind and engaged in different daily activities. Wehmer’s brushstroke is free and bold on the canvas. He describes his style as “the meaning of a post-abstraction painting… in the field between abstraction and figurism”. Although Wehmer’s style is abstract, the compositions of his works are often simple and the subject matters in his paintings clearly represented.  

Wehmer’s works are created by the separation of pure presentation and formal abstraction. He draws on socially relevant goods, which remain connected by his personal desire and point of view. He does not intend to de-materialize art nor to contextualize, to advance today's definition of artistic creation, but consciously welcomes the restrictive properties of the painting. As a result, the painting is a mean to demonstrate his artistic creativity and fetish obsession of the objects. 

Martin Wehmer was born in Hattingen, Germany in 1966. He was awarded the Volksbanken art prize in Gemany in 1996. He took up art residencies in Edinburgh in 2003 and in Beijing in 2008, organized by the International Exchange & Studio Program Basel (IAAB). He has lived and worked in Beijing since 2008. He was one of the organizers of the Beijing 798 Biennale in 2009. He has taught as a lecturer at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, and in the CDK project, a joint programme of the University of the Arts, Berlin and the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, facilitating art exchange programs between China and Germany. His works have been exhibited extensively throughout Europe and China and included in important public and private collections around the world.