Andrea Berthel
It is usually the human being who is in the foreground in Andrea Berthel’s works and is often depicted in a hyper-realistic manner. She captures every wrinkle, every blemish, every detail, no matter how small, with the utmost precision. She sees and paints things that a photographer cannot capture. Andrea Berthel shows people with their worries and fears. Their faces emerge from veiled backgrounds, are overlaid by fog or smoothed structures. By embedding many of her naturalistic painted people in an abstract, structural background, the artist gives her works a magical, dreamlike, if not surreal quality. The artist gathers inspiration for her works, which are mostly executed in mixed media, when she travels, from books or from her private environment. In her works she processes personal experiences and impressions. It is often marginal figures in society, excluded people, whom Andrea Berthel gives “hearing” with her works.
Born 1958 in Santiago (Chile)
Studied art history, German and English in Stuttgart and Heidelberg (Germany)
parallel to this, autodidactic acquisition of all painting techniques
1989-1995 occupation with the art of “trompe-l’oeil” in South Africa
from 1996 work as a freelance artist and muralist
from 2006 creative reorientation (sea pictures, reflections, reflections and light representations)
since 2008 also hyper-realistic human studies in a philosophical and time-critical context
lives and works in Baden-Baden (Germany)