Painting Between Memory, Nature, and Free Form<\/p>\n\n\n\n
August 28 – October 17, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
opening reception: August 28, 6 – 8pm<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrea Damp was born in Bergen on R\u00fcgen in 1977 and grew up in a landscape whose unique combination of water, light, vegetation, and shifting atmospheres has deeply imprinted itself on her perception. In her paintings, nature therefore rarely appears as mere backdrop; it is memory, a space of experience, and a living presence. It can feel familiar and, in the next moment, transform into something indefinable, unfamiliar, or dreamlike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before Andrea Damp devoted herself entirely to painting, she studied philosophy and art history at the Free University of Berlin. She then transferred to the Berlin University of the Arts, where she studied fine arts under Hans-J\u00fcrgen Diehl. Already during her studies, she received a scholarship from the Dorothea Konwiarz Foundation for painting and worked as her professor\u2019s assistant from 2001 to 2003. After graduating in 2004, a scholarship took her to the Glasgow School of Art. In 2005, she completed her studies at the Berlin University of the Arts as a master student of Hans-J\u00fcrgen Diehl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The combination of theoretical reflection and practical experience in the studio continues to shape her<\/p>\n\n\n\n work to this day. Andrea Damp does not view painting merely as a means to idea as accurately as possible. Rather, the painting emerges in an open process in which color, line, surface, space, and figuration constantly interact in new ways. Knowledge of art history and experience of nature complement one another in this process without losing their independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the years following her studies, Damp\u2019s artistic development was recognized through numerous scholarships and awards. Among other honors, she received the Elsa Neumann Fellowship (Naf\u00f6G) from the Berlin Senate, the Cranach Fellowship from the City of Wittenberg, and the Karl Hofer Fellowship. In 2010, she was awarded the Dorothea Konwiarz Prize for Painting, and in 2014 she was among the recipients of the twelfth Tempelhof-Sch\u00f6neberg Art Prize. From 2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n to 2017, Andrea Damp taught painting at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. Another important milestone was her 2019 residency at the Budapest Art Factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since graduating, Andrea Damp\u2019s work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Germany and internationally. As early as 2009, , the Richard Haizmann Museum in Nieb\u00fcll dedicated the exhibition \u201cPulsschlag der Farbe\u201d to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2017, she returned to this venue with the solo exhibition \u201cMagnificat.\u201d Other solo exhibitions have taken her to Frankfurt, D\u00fcsseldorf, G\u00f6ttingen, Gothenburg, Viborg, Stockholm, and Berlin. Her works have also been featured at international art fairs such as Art Karlsruhe, the POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair, VOLTA Basel, Luxembourg Art Week, and Art Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works by Andrea Damp are now held in many public and institutional collections. These include the Art Collection of the German Bundestag, the collection at the Willy Brandt House, the Museum of Contemporary Art\u2014Hurrle Collection, the Museumsberg Flensburg, as well as various municipal and regional collections in Sweden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The exhibition GLIMMER at the janinebeangallery in Berlin brings together large-format paintings from the years 2015 through 2017 with new works from 2026. Although there is a gap of about ten years separate the two groups of works; nevertheless, no linear progression from an earlier to a supposedly more sublime style. The older paintings do not appear as completed preliminary stages that have been superseded by the current work. The juxtaposition, rather, reveals that possibilities were already present that Andrea Damp is revisiting today. What appeared in the earlier paintings as a dynamic fusion of figuration and free painterly form is given a new works. Narrative elements are used more sparingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Color, surface, rhythm, and spatial tension gain greater autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe spaces and the color scheme are finalized as late as possible,\u201d says Andrea Damp about her working method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This statement leads directly to the heart of her painting. It does not begin with a story which is then illustrated. First, an image develops from color, line, plane, texture, and contrast. Fluid and transparent layers of paint meet denser sections, shapes emerge, are reworked, covered up, or revealed again. For the most part, it remains unclear whether these processes will result in a landscape, a figure, or a narrative situation will emerge. Only as the painting progresses does it become clear which elements will remain. Figures, animals, plants, or architectural fragments can establish relationships and give the painting a direction; however, they do not appear as motifs inserted motifs. They grow out of the painterly process and remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At times, Andrea Damp deliberately forgoes a final figurative conclusion. In such cases, color, surface, and spatial movement carry the painting almost entirely on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In her work, figuration and abstraction do not stand in opposition to one another; but rather are part of the same process of image creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This openness is not indecision; rather, it arises from a long and concentrated creative process. Andrea Damp keeps various possibilities open in the painting for as long as possible before individual decisions become final. Her paintings can therefore appear both precise and elusive at the same time. Something emerges, remains visible for a moment, and eludes unambiguous identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The large-format works from 2015 to 2017 exemplify this principle with particular intensity. In \u201cDas gro\u00dfe Welttheater\u201d (The Great World Theater) from 2015, plant-like forms, body fragments, linear movements, and fields of color overlap. The composition has no fixed center, and the viewer\u2019s gaze wanders through a complex unfolding in which individual phenomena appear, are obscured, and reconnect with one another. The culturally and historically charged title evokes the notion of the world as a stage. Andrea Damp, however, does not create an orderly spectacle with clearly defined roles. Her world theater is a simultaneously unfolding scene in nature\u2014one that is almost impossible to take in at a glance\u2014where body, space, and painterly form interact without submitting to a self-contained narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Likewise, \u201cHalbschlaf\u201d (2017) does not refer to a precisely definable place, but rather to a state of limited certainty. Light-colored forms, dark lines, and colored sections emerge, dissolve again, and come together only temporarily to form a possible scene. The title corresponds to the experience underlying the painting: in a state of half-sleep, perceptions appear clear yet transform in the very next moment. Andrea Damp manifests this state of limbo without fixing it in place. The painting remains precise in its painterly choices while remaining open to what those choices might represent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new works from 2026 build on this foundation without repeating the earlier body of work. Narrative details recede into the background, while Andrea Damp places even greater trust in the inherent power of painting. Color does not serve merely to make an object visible; it becomes an event in and of itself. Surfaces open and close; spatial depths emerge and are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs Memory Wills\u201d from 2026 depicts a water lily pond. The motif is unmistakable, yet it does not coalesce into a conventional landscape. Water lily leaves and blossoms lie clearly outlined on a dark expanse of water. Above them, black and yellow contoured forms into a barely discernible shore, a reflection, or dissolving vegetation. The spatial relationships remain uncertain, as near and far intertwine. The gaze finds no fixed vantage point but moves between recognizable objects and open, painterly zones. Memory does not appear here as a reliable repository of a past sight. It becomes a creative force that that selects, amplifies, omits, and reassembles. The image evokes not so much a specific place as the way a place lives on in memory and takes on a slightly altered form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This openness is also condensed in the small formats. \u201cPoker Face,\u201d measuring just 15 by 15 centimeters, demands immediate proximity from the viewer precisely because of its small size from the viewer. A mask-like figure appears in a dark, dynamic color space; her face remains impassive. It is unclear whether she is protecting herself, assuming a role, or simply stepping out of the painting for a brief moment. The title refers to a face that does not reveal its emotions and at the same time describes the attitude of the entire painting,<\/p>\n\n\n\n for it reveals something while still preserving its mystery. Only from close up do the traces of the painting, the layers, and the subtle variations in the surface become visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In \u201cThe Lucky Ones,\u201d two mushroom-like figures stand side by side in a bright space defined by lines, splashes of color, and translucent layers. They appear at once comical, vulnerable, and tenacious. Although the title sounds like an honor, it leaves open the question of what the luck of these two figures might consist of. Andrea Damp establishes a narrative impulse without resolving it, as the figures open up a possible story rather than telling it to the end. This is precisely a characteristic feature of her work, in which even a clearly recognizable motif possesses an excess that is not exhausted by its name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The title GLIMMER connects the various groups of works and experiences in this exhibition. \u201cGlimmer\u201d does not refer to a single substance, but rather to a group of minerals consisting of fine, overlapping layers. Their surfaces react to the light and change their appearance depending on the viewing angle. Andrea Damp\u2019s paintings, too, are created through layering, in which paint is applied, painted over, broken through, or re-exposed. Individual elements retain their independence and, in their interplay, produce an effect that cannot be attributed to any single component alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the term has a second, contemporary meaning. In English, \u201cglimmers\u201d refer to small, everyday moments that can unexpectedly trigger joy, calm, or a sense of security. They form fleeting counterpoints to experiences that evoke unease or fear. In Andrea Damp\u2019s paintings, such moments do not appear as unclouded idylls but manifest as points of light within complex and at times dark visual worlds. They may lie in a blossom, in a peculiar figure, in a surprising interplay of colors, or in that almost inexplicable sense of familiarity that a painting can suddenly evoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n GLIMMER thus describes both the material and the emotional experience of these works. Their appearance changes with the light, the distance, and the duration of observation. Up close, lines, overpaintings, and surfaces emerge, while from a greater distance, landscapes, figures, and spatial relationships can take shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of these perceptions is definitive, for the paintings are not exhausted by a single glance or an unambiguous explanation. They hold something back, and it is precisely through this that they gain a sense of presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The juxtaposition of Andrea Damp\u2019s works from 2015 to 2017 with her new works from 2026 therefore does not reveal a completed transformation. It reveals the consistency of a painter who, after many years, reexamines her own methods and uncovers a potential within them that remains effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The older and newer paintings do not explain one another; rather, they alter the way we view each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between them, a space emerges where continuity and renewal, memory and the present, figuration and free painterly form converge. It is precisely in the original that one can experience what Andrea Damp\u2019s art is based on: the simultaneity of material presence and<\/p>\n\n\n\n visual imagination. Her paintings are self-contained without being closed off. They possess the ability to appear differently with each encounter and to unleash new perceptions over the long term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andrea Damp GLIMMER Painting Between Memory, Nature, and Free Form August 28 – October 17, 2026 opening reception: August 28, 6 – 8pm Andrea Damp was born in Bergen on R\u00fcgen in 1977 and grew up in a landscape whose unique combination of water, light, vegetation, and shifting atmospheres has deeply imprinted itself on her … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-19822","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19822"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19826,"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/19822\/revisions\/19826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Andrea](\"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2026_A.Damp_Wie-die-Erinnerung-es-will_140x180_LD-500x391.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n![\"Andrea](\"https:\/\/www.janinebeangallery.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/2017_A.Damp_Halbschlaf_180x140_300dpi_A-500x392.jpg\")
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