Art in Harmony with Life and Nature

Martin Ziegelmüller’s works are filled with vitality and reveal a remarkable acuity of observation. He is strongly committed to relating to the world in which he lives and responding to changes in the environment. He strives as a person and as an artist to live in harmony with nature. Consequently, Ziegelmüller’s landscapes show the region, plains, and river courses he frequented during his childhood and youth. His portraits represent family members or acquaintances, and also his groups of paintings focusing on the theme of working life are based on connections through friends. Ziegelmüller repeatedly reuses certain motifs in his work. Sometimes, however, he may suddenly discard them altogether – possibly to reintroduce them at some stage in new and varied forms.

Vitality and Nature's Powers of Regeneration
Martin Ziegelmüller is a realist who loves open horizons and explores new frontiers in art. He finds inspiration on daily hikes outdoors along rivers and lakes or while fishing. He integrates what he has witnessed on these outings into his work. His striking powers of observation are evidenced by his amazingly colored artworks of overcast skies or of water, in which he studies the visual manifestations of its currents – how it flows or spills over hindrances in its path. The artist also regards nature’s regenerative power in the face of human destruction and exploitation as an urgent issue. In many of his artworks the world is full of ruins, cities are flooded, or nature has reclaimed its territory.

A comprehensive retrospective
The double exhibition taking place in the Kunstmuseum Bern and in the Kunsthaus Langenthal reveals the great scope of Martin Ziegelmüller’s work. The presentation in the Kunstmuseum Bern focuses on landscapes in the broadest sense of the genre: On the one hand, it shows marshes, river courses, strips of river banks, gardens, and fields of flowers, and, on the other, real and visionary cityscapes. In an almost surrealistic manner, streets lined with buildings are haunted by ghosts, witches, and UFOs as harbingers of apocalyptic urban visions. His paintings with landscapes of wetlands are based on impressions from his early childhood and provide the connecting thread to the exhibition in the Kunsthaus Langenthal. Martin Ziegelmüller is fascinated by atmospheric and reflected light impressions as well as contrasting colors. We find these effects not only in his depictions of gathering storm clouds but also in the glaring neon lights of factory buildings that can be viewed in the Kunsthaus Langenthal. In Langenthal visitors will additionally find portraits of the artist’s friends besides his illustrated coverage of the working world.

Images & Documentations