Depiction and abstraction, surface and space, coloration and texture - These are the poles between which David Borgmann's paintings explore the relationship between painting mode, motif and image in painting. On the one hand, many paintings appear matter-of-factly abstracted. On the other hand, a strong and emotionally sustained atmosphere unfolds in them through the scenic motifs, the muted yet powerfully luminous colors, and the drama with which the textures, colors, and motivic elements meet in their precise placement. The textures, which emerge from the experimentation of materials with various tools, emerge in a great wealth of razor-sharp detail, exerting a strong pull on the viewer. Meanwhile, the view that repeatedly reaches into the depths of the horizon suggests freedom and vastness. Through their idiosyncratic painting technique, David Borgmann's pictures appear novel, and yet in many places the intensive preoccupation with the traditions of landscape depiction right up to contemporary painting becomes clear. In the simplification of complicated motifs to dynamic painting gestures and in the flat abstraction Asian painting and especially Japanese woodcuts echo. Other paintings, such as the more recent seascapes with clouds, in their clear spatial construction oriented to the Renaissance idea of the window view, are more reminiscent of the seascapes of a Gustave Courbet. Other pictures deconstruct the space as the western pictorial history of the optical view pretends it to a collage-like picture effect and thereby touched different ideas: If the landscape here almost becomes a map, which we can wander with our eyes, the illusion there almost dissolves into a geometric composition and thus ties in with color field painting. If the ambivalent, mysterious picture effect takes the viewer for itself, the picture world, which David Borgmann explores persistently, shows itself at the same time in motion and leaves room for curiosity, where this work will develop further. 

David Borgmann lives and works in Leipzig and Munich. He studied painting with Karin Kneffel in Bremen and Munich, and with Heribert C. Ottersbach and Ingo Meller at the HGB Leipzig, where he graduated as a master student. Borgmann has received numerous grants and awards, and in 2017 he was the recipient of the Nordwestkunst prize, which is awarded every two years by the Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven. Since 2018, David Borgmann has been teaching as an artistic assistant to Professor Pia Fries at the Akademie der bildenden Kunste Munich. Borgmann's works are already represented in important private and public collections such as the Hildebrand Collection and the Bayrische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.