About the work

Heinrich Siepmann was a co-founder of the "junger westen" (Young West) artist group in Recklinghausen in 1948. His coherent image structures reveal themselves to understanding, as well as to the emotions as balanced, harmoniously functioning units. The images are composed of geometric forms, which are empathetically balanced against one another in their colourfulness and positioning. In the process, they are not limited to the composition of areas, but instead become spatially relevant through overpainting, overlapping and the painting of edges. The viewer begins to involuntarily comprehend the contexts of the pictorial elements, to explore the significance of each individual part for the whole.
The collages of Heinrich Siepmann, which he composes of cut up paper, card, corrugated cardboard and other found objects, such as coffee packaging foil, also “function” according to the same composition principle as his canvases. Like most of the slightly imperfect and irregular geometrical forms, the surface feel and the texture of the pictorial elements acquire significance for the composition in the process. The seemingly playful juxtaposition, overlapping and mixing of all collage elements, usually deliberately not glued entirely according to plan, thus possess a real spatial depth, as is only suggested in the painted canvases. In contrast with his paintings, Siepmann’s collages are freer fields of experimentation that clearly convey the unselfconscious joy of the artist and his pleasure in composition.
(Eva Müller-Remmert)