Bernd Zimmer - Biography

Bernd Zimmer (*1948 in Planegg near Munich) trained to be a publishing bookseller before he moved to Berlin in 1973 to start working as a book designer. Already in 1972 he traveled to Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Burma and Hong Kong for four month. Zimmer studied philosophy and theology at the Freie Universität Berlin between 1973 and 1979. He interrupted his studies to travel to Mexico and the South of the United States for several month in 1975. Fascinated by the paintings of the muralists around Diego Riviera, Zimmer began painting as an autodidact after his return. Already during this early period Zimmer showed a preference for large formats and used mainly primary colours, which he applied to the canvas without preparatory drawings. In 1977 Zimmer founded the “Galerie am Moritzplatz” together with Rainer Fetting, Helmut Middendorf and Salomé, a support-gallery for artists to present their own works. Several group- and solo exhibitions followed. Zimmer takes on the topic of landscapes again and again; he handles the impressions from his numerous travels in large format series.

Bernd Zimmer's style hovers between figurative depiction and abstraction

Art by Bernd Zimmer

In the following years his trips took him to Java, Bali, Lombok and the Dominican Republic. “Being in one place for a long time, being stuck in my studio, limits me. I formalize my paintings, I get sucked into art's vortex. (…) Then I know I have to travel to strengthen my perception: I encounter new connections, do not have to play a role, do not carry responsibility, only for myself. It is always about education and expansion of the mind, not least about knowledge.”, Bernd Zimmer says about his wanderlust. Zimmer's works are powerful, colour- and light-intensive, they show wood glades, roaring waterfalls, lush dense rainforests. His style hovers between figurative depiction and abstraction. In 1982 Bernd Zimmer was awarded a scholarship at the Villa Massimo in Rome. After his return in 1948 he settled in Polling in Upper Bavaria. In the following years Zimmer moved to a studio in Liguria, later in the Emilia Romagna, as well as a studio in Oberhausen near Polling. He finally moved his studio to Oberhausen in Upper Bavaria in 1994.

Zimmer also traveled to the Sahara desert several times, in the desert paintings he created under the impressions of this location the artist often pushes the reduction to the boundaries of abstract colour field painting. In 1995 he traveled to the Marquesas-islands in Hiva Oa with a cargo ship.

 

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