Dieter Mammel

Dieter Mammel (1965) over the years developed a special technique, he paints with ink on raw canvas which is made wet which makes the colour run out and branche whimsically. The images he paints are based on photographic examples. First, he used pictures from his own family album in the series Family works, which he later expanded with more general pictures from the 50’s and 60’s. These Familienbilder (Family Works), almost all painted with green ink, are familiar and confronting at the same time, reminding of both childhood happiness and drama.

The Family Works are followed by the series Magenta Lovers, Feeling Blue, Blueberry Cycle, Under Deep Water, Diva, Yellow, the Cyan Cycle and Transit.

In the TRANSIT series Dieter Mammel addresses the profound issues of out time of climate change, political unrest, war and migration. In the paintings he translates these seemingly uncontrollable forces into a human scale. Mammel himself knows the stories of his grandparents who had to flee across the Balkans to Germany at the end of World War II.

In the series he also refers indirectly to his own childhood, a boy playing on the beach or looking into the water in a moment of introspection and innocence that will inevitably disappear. Other images are more symbolic like the man wading through the water or explicit with refugees in a winter landscape or a monkey screeching out of anger and frustration.

www.dieter-mammel.de