Peter Bömmels Exhibitions and Events

“Painting is seeing. It is the sensitive and attentive condensation of images as they emerge—onto and into the surface. I feel committed to the suddenness of imagination. Everything else, its refinement into form, is owed to art.”

Peter Bömmels (b.1951) is a self-taught German artist, internationally known for his psychologically charged paintings and unorthodox materials, including polymer clay and human hair. A founding member of the influential Cologne-based artist group Mülheimer Freiheit and co-founder of the groundbreaking SPEX music magazine, Bömmels has long explored the tangled complexities of identity, emotion, and relationships through a surreal, often haunting visual language.

Known for his unique style, balancing between outsider art and surreal absurdity, Bömmels depicts emotionally intense figures caught in moments of euphoria, confusion, or erotic misery. His work navigates the space between humor and horror, drawing viewers into strange narrative realms filled with “soul-particles” of human experience.

From the 1990s onward, Bömmels has also been deeply involved in teaching, holding professorships in Hamburg, Berlin, Braunschweig, and Copenhagen, and later teaching at the Dresden University of Fine Arts.

Through layered symbolism, dreamlike landscapes, and distorted figures, Bömmels creates spaces where narrative is merely suggested, and meaning is for the viewer to uncover.

Group shows

2016, Die Neuen Wilden. Figurative Malerei in der BRD in den 80er Jahren, Groninger Museum

2015, Geniale Dilletanten. Subkultur der 1980er Jahre in Deutschland, Haus der Kunst

2003, Obsessive Malerei, ZKM Karlsruhe

1984, An International Survey of Recent Painting and Scultpure, Museum of Modern Art