Irlands Küste, 2011

Karl Heinz Essig  

Karl Heinz Essig was born on 25 October 1935 in Rheda-Wiedenbrück and trained as an interior designer by studying at the Werkkunstschule in Kiel. After completing his studies, he initially worked at a design agency in Hamburg and later spent many years working as a freelance furniture designer. Art played a major role in Karl Heinz Essig's life even during his student and professional years. He had always engaged with painting before, in the 1990s, he completely gave up his professional career as a designer to devote himself exclusively to his true calling as an artist. Whilst only a few works from his early period have survived, his oeuvre since the 1990s is relatively complete and extensive. Karl Heinz Essig, however, never became a 'producer'. He paints from pure feeling, from an intuition that forbids him from repeating himself without developing artistically. For years, Essig's works have steadily gained recognition and significance in the public eye. Numerous national and international exhibitions in galleries and museums bear witness to the high artistic potential of his works.

Karl Heinz Essig is first and foremost a painter and draughtsman. In his works, he often combines painterly elements—that is, those emphasising colour—with draughtsman-like elements—that is, those emphasising lines and forms. His oeuvre also includes graphic works, lithographs and, in particular, etchings.

What is so fascinating about Essig's work is its uniqueness. Whilst thoroughly grounded in art history, Essig has nevertheless managed to free himself from his predecessors and found his own distinct form of expression. Unmistakable and defying direct comparison, the oeuvre of the 72-year-old stands entirely on its own.

Essig is, as the art historian Gerhard Charles Rump writes in an essay, a “multi-voiced, a polyphonic painter". His paintings transcend the boundaries of meaning and are rarely grasped at first glance. They require the viewer's engagement, offering clues but no unambiguous guidelines for a valid interpretation. They are open works whose aspirations extend far beyond the merely decorative.

Essig's visual world is a world full of stories. Boundless and often veiled in small symbols, they open up a multitude of possible interpretations. However, the artist repeatedly uses certain symbols: these include the bird living in freedom, which peacefully and casually joins figures, animals and plants, and the eye-flowers – one of Essig's fantasy motifs – as naturally living elements of flora and fauna. Indeed, nature plays a central role in Essig's work. Essig's paintings resonate like hymns of praise to the fascination of the natural world. Particularly in his atmospheric landscape paintings, but also in his numerous floral still lifes, there is always a certain sense of reverence and respect, as well as a call for the fair treatment of nature.

In his figurative compositions, central figures drive the narrative. Yet, with a unique, self-assured and confident brushstroke—whose originality is comparable to that of one of the most gifted artistic geniuses, such as Picasso—Karl Heinz Essig does not create representations of humanity, but rather ethereal apparitions. They have their own right to exist as artistic figures far removed from reality. Thus, in Essig's paintings, dreamlike elements, imaginatively staged, encounter recurring, meaningful symbols. As a viewer, one always senses a quiet longing in the works, something romantically dreamy. With their subtle, calm colour palette, they resemble gentle melodies that are a true joy to listen to: one can surrender to them, let oneself go, lose oneself within them – and find oneself.

An artist of subtle tones
Essig's art is not spectacular, but subtle. It unfolds slowly, like a poem that you read several times and understand anew each time.

Highly recognisable
Thanks to his symbols, his use of colour and his distinctive combination of line and form, his work is instantly recognisable – a rare quality in contemporary art.

Emotional and intellectual at the same time
His paintings appeal to both the heart and the mind. They invite us to:

Reflect
Feel
Linger
Why his art touches people
Essig's works have something deeply human about them: they are fragile, open, searching – and at the same time clear, calm and grounded.

They appear like visual diary entries of a person who does not merely depict the world, but penetrates it.

Karl Heinz Essig passed away on 19 April 2021 at his home in St. Vit.