Martin Werthmann

Studio of the Artist

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Martin Werthmann is one of the best-known artists of his generation making extensive use of the woodcut technique. His monumental colour woodcuts executed on large sheets of paper are unique and consist of several superimposed layers. They are distinguished by a radically new formal language, with the artist using his own images as well as press photos to create new pictorial spaces addressing questions of existence.

In addition to prints, Werthmann creates large-scale installations such as Vortex (2014), which consisted of a gigantic water vortex six meters in diameter. Visitors could enter the centre from the bottom, finding themselves surrounded by 30,000 litres of turning water. In 2019, Werthmann created the set design for the opera The Dead City by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, directed by Armin Petras at the Theatre Bremen. The artist designed a cathedral-like construction over which he stretched a woodcut measuring 200 square metres. His Diamond Breathing Machine (2010/2022), a device isolating the carbon from the artist’s breath which is then pressed into a diamond, is currently part of the exhibition Up in the Air. Air as an Artistic Material at the Kunstmuseum Bonn.

Werthmann studied from 2004 to 2009 at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg under Andeas Slominski. Among his teachers were Wim Wenders, Fatih Akin, Daniel Richter and Michael Diers. He lives and works in Berlin.