The Artist
Ute Meyer, born in December 1957
Visual artist
Second state examination in art for secondary schools, PH Flensburg
since 1999 studio in Flensburg
Art therapist, art projects in the field of open youth work
National and international exhibitions and collectors
The paintings can be found in Germany, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Croatia, USA, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
Current exhibitions
My artistic practice is rooted in direct observation and a deep engagement with the natural world. Working primarily in oil and watercolour, I am drawn to painting outdoors, where the constantly shifting qualities of light, atmosphere and weather become active participants in the creative process. These changing conditions influence not only the visual character of each work but also its rhythm, energy and emotional resonance, making every painting a unique response to a specific period of time during one day.
Alongside plein air painting, I develop works inspired by my own photographs and everyday experiences. Rather than documenting reality, I transform these impressions into compositions that move between abstraction and representation, exploring the balance between memory, perception and emotion. My photographs serve as visual anchors, allowing me to revisit the atmosphere of a place while creating space for interpretation and painterly expression.
Throughout my practice, I seek to convey a sense of clarity, vitality and openness. Whether depicting a landscape, a rural scene or an abstract composition, I aim to create works that invite quiet contemplation while preserving the immediacy of lived experience. Light, depth and spatial expansiveness form recurring elements within my work, creating a visual language that connects the different series I produce.
Ultimately, my paintings are an invitation to pause and experience the subtle dialogue between nature, perception and memory, revealing the extraordinary qualities that exist within everyday moments.
Current exhibitions
Reflections on the artistic work of Ute Meyer
You will look in vain for gimmickry and manipulated emotions in Ute Meyer’s work
Experience-based observation and precise reproduction of what has been experienced give rise to works that do not seek to create impressions and emotions by distorting the object and the colors, but rather convey the emotions of a moment or a period of time to the observer with great precision by means of accurate reproduction of the color spaces, conscious perspective and sophisticated painting technique.
The artist is able to capture these moods, translate them and express them in her works. However, it is necessary for Ute Meyer to experience these moments, because without a complete and conscious experience of the moment, a truthful reproduction of the mood remains unsuccessful.
Her pictures of the coasts of the German/Danish Baltic Sea and the Shetland Islands therefore often bear witness to the success of this process. The works are often created directly in the situation, i.e. on the beach or in the garden. Animal and macro studies are painted from her own photographs in the studio and completed through constant shaping.
In terms of content, Ute Meyer proves to be almost a singularity in comparison to other artists, especially contemporary artists, because her central theme is not the depiction of conflict. Where art and artists set out to reveal conflicts, suffering or inequality, Ute Meyer takes a different path: conflict is rare in her work and when it does appear, it is usually in the form of coming to terms with and overcoming it.
For many years, I was of the opinion that art should, if not be the content, then at least be the driving force behind it.
In the meantime, I see Ute Meyer’s approach as at least an equal and wise alternative. She conveys harmony, offers solutions without asking about the problem; she transports the beauty of nature and does not succumb to attempts to misappropriate it or load it with an additional agenda.
The human being is not the center of her work, sheer duality is not the subject, no ideology clouds the canvas and no abstract struggle seeks to capture our attention. What we can find on Ute Meyer’s path, however, are shared moments of experience, energies of nature and harmony bound on paper, canvas and wood, carefully gathered and curated like a beekeeper’s harvest.
Thobe Appel-Sünder in February 2018