EXPO Chicago

Josef Hirthammer has been working as a visual artist for over 40 years. His œuvre is extremely complex and defies categorization. The broad artistic range is reflected in the different design mediums, such as painting, drawing, photography, digital painting, sculpture, and installations. In terms of content, Josef Hirthammer focuses on portraits as well as ecological and philosophical themes, which he approaches through his work series. He is an outspoken nature enthusiast who transforms his encounters with nature into art objects. He is primarily interested in the producing, generating, creative, and active nature, which becomes effective from itself and which in the philosophical tradition has been equated with the source of all finite things. The artist, who lives and works in Fürth, views nature as a macro- and microcosm of its own with a unique aesthetic. This way of thinking provides him with inspiration for his works of art.

Leif Trenker, a graduate of the Städelschule in Frankfurt, is considered an important initiator of the New Figuration movement in Germany. In his works, which oscillate between realism and surrealism, the artist, who lives and works in Cologne, examines the effect of light and shadow on architecture, landscapes, and figures. There is deliberately no clear differentiation between fiction and reality, which becomes evident in the expressive and intentionally overdriven use of color in his pictorial worlds. Thus, through a poetic sense of reverie, he disrupts the ordinary, architectural, or natural space and draws in an exciting, fantastical dimension, where the mere visual quality fascinates and at the same time represents his unique style. His paintings on birch wood are instantaneous moments, where figures are mostly depicted in the foreground. Thematically, his work focuses on childhood memories, street and nature views, and scenes of everyday life and parties.

Based on an expanded concept of the image, the light-space-movement and time in the network of relationships between art and everyday life are the fundamental aspects of Gunda Förster's artistic work. Her space-related works can be understood as painting with contemporary methods or places of body and space perception that play with spatial reflection, but also social and perceptual-psychological conditions from the most diverse creative means. An important element of her work is defining and breaking boundaries - the architecture of space, of the image, the boundary between art and everyday life, between art, architecture, design and advertising, practical and theoretical debate, product and process, private and public, and reality and appearance. The formal reduction of her works determines their symbolic quality. The significance is only revealed by linking the most diverse aspects and their meanings. Essentially, Gunda Förster’s works focus on the correspondence between light, space, movement, and time as aspects that are constantly present in everyday life as well as in art.

Andy Rementer’s work spans painting, drawing, and illustration, combining everyday motifs with a playful, often surprising visual world.

His works typically center on simplified figures and objects that emerge from striking swaths of color and precise compositions. Rementer’s work strikes a unique balance between lightheartedness and thoughtfulness, inviting viewers to discover for themselves the stories hidden between the depicted forms.

In addition to his independent artistic practice, Andy Rementer regularly collaborates with international brands and institutions such as Apple, Nike, Samsung, Lotte, The New York Times, Lacoste, Warby Parker, and BMW. His works have been exhibited worldwide and have earned him a solid standing within the contemporary art and illustration scene.