Sebastian Speckmann

The staged space is important for Sebastian Speckmann, too. His productions are based on graphic works created by classical relief printing with wood- or linocut. Sebastian Speckmann searches for motifs in his private photo archive, but in books, magazines and illustrated books as well: Still lifes, landscapes, portraits. Apart from that the artist also works with scans, zooms and assemblages of his technically perfect graphic prints. He is continuously developing new motifs; thus, an ever-increasing visual cosmos with new narratives is created. Works ranging from Romanticism to present times are put together and against each other in an equally and also naturally way. Thus, the artist creates pictures made of pictures playing with the definition of original and reproduction.

The artist produced new and often overlapping layers and three-dimensional arrangements which we can access and thereby encounter an own puzzlingly distorted and strangely familiar imagery at the same time.

The question about the ‘I am’ and the individual in our society, questions about art – image and reproduction – call on the artist to reflect: What is it behind the question, what does it mean, what keeps everything together? The artists gathered here ask these questions as well, using determinedly contemporary means of art, but – and this is of particular interest – they also make use of traditional working methods and techniques in a targeted and self-evident manner. They invite us to set out to search for clues and start a conversation.

Sebastian Speckmann lives and works in Leipzig.