MARTIN WEHMER

Martin Wehmer’s paintings explore how perception, cultural memory, and personal experience shape our understanding of reality. Rooted in European and German artistic traditions, his practice moves fluidly between abstraction and figuration, drawing upon forms and imagery with psychological, symbolic, and cultural associations. While his subjects provide a point of entry establishing mood, atmosphere, and a visual anchor for the viewer, Wehmer’s paintings ultimately turn inward, becoming explorations of painting itself. In this post-conceptual approach, color, gesture, surface, and the physical act of painting take on equal importance to the image, inviting the viewer to experience the tension between representation and abstraction. Rather than illustrating fixed narratives, Wehmer uses painting as a means of questioning, reinterpreting, and ultimately expanding our perception of the world.

Wehmer was born in Hattingen, Germany in 1966. Amongst his earliest achievements, he was awarded the Volksbanken Art Prize in 1996. International residencies in Edinburgh and Beijing expanded his perspective and ultimately led him to settle in Beijing in 2008, where he lived for many years and became actively engaged with China’s contemporary art community. In 2009, he was among the organizers of the 798 Beijing Biennale. He returned to Germany in 2026, and is now based in Berlin. His experience living between cultures has become central to his practice, informing his exploration of how meaning shifts across geographic, historical, and cultural boundaries.

Alongside his studio practice, Wehmer has taught at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, and the Chinese-German Academy of Art, contributing to artistic exchange between China and Germany. His work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in notable public and corporate collections, including UBS in Hong Kong, Cologne, and Zürich, as well as Kunstkredit Basel and the Kultusministerium Kanton Basel.