Biography

Michel Lamoller (born in 1984 in the Black Forest) is a visual artist whose work lies at the intersection of photography, sculpture, and installation. Using an independent, innovative process, he develops photographic works that consistently transcend the classical pictorial space.

Michel Lamoller studied film, photography, and sculpture at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg from 2005 to 2012. Between 2010 and 2012, he was a master class student of Professor Matt Mullican, where he refined his conceptual and spatial approach to image design. In 2020, Lamoller was awarded the International Photography Prize “Altered Narratives” by ETH Zurich and the Max Planck Society in Zurich for his innovative contributions to contemporary photography.

Through the precise layering and subsequent manual editing of photographs with a scalpel, relief-like image bodies are created in which spatial depth manifests itself physically. Lamoller thus constructs three-dimensional architectures within the photographic surface—interstitial spaces that only reveal themselves to the viewer when they come closer.

His works question the perception of space, perspective, and reality, transforming photography from a two-dimensional image into a plastic object with a sculptural presence.

In his latest series of works, Michel Lamoller unfolds a visual world of extraordinary density in which nature no longer appears as a distant landscape, but as a zone of contact: as something that has been touched—and at the same time touches us. The exhibition title “Die berührte Natur” (Touched Nature) describes not only a state of the world, but also an experience of seeing. Lamoller's works show that nature today has never remained untouched: it is marked, reshaped, changed. And it is precisely in this contact—in the intervention, in the trace, in the metamorphosis—that a peculiar, fragile beauty emerges.

His works originate from photography, from real, documentary surfaces of the world, from a tradition of lens-based photography that first captures and fixes reality optically. But these photographic source images do not remain mere representations. Lamoller alienates, layers, and superimposes them until relief-like image bodies emerge. Nature is not simply depicted; it becomes materially tangible: surfaces are transformed into layers, traces, and condensations. What we see is not nature “in itself,” but nature that has already passed through history.

The complex poetry of his superimpositions creates a quiet urgency. Lamoller opens our eyes to a world that is constantly rewriting itself—not as a definitive landscape, but as a continuous metamorphosis. His works allow us to feel that everything is in flux: surface, space, nature, time—and that we ourselves are part of this contact.

Museums- und Einzelausstellungen (Auswahl)

2026

Berührte Natur, Samuelis Baumgarte Galerie, Bielefeld

2025 Contemporary Nature – solo show during Gallery Weekend Berlin 2022
Anthropogenic Mass – The Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam
2019
Dislocated Space – Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg
2018
Walls apart – Gudberg Nerger Gallery, Hamburg (catalogue)
A depthless world –Nitra Gallery, Athens
2017
Space Invaders. Photographic interventions and interventions into photography – Direktorenhaus Museum for Art, Crafts and Design, Berlin
2012
Layerscapes – Galerie Jahn, Heilbronn

Gruppenausstellungen

2025 Conjunction – Affenfaust Galerie Hamburg

2024 Summer Show by Marie Curie Foundation – The Royal Academy London. Los Raros: New Narratives of Contemporary Collage – Sala Municipal de Exposiciones de La Pasión, Valladolid. Curated by Max-o-matic Entransito – Sant Antoni de Portmany. Curated by Claudius Strack

2023 Apex Predator – Kunsthalle Brennabor. Curated by Vanessa Souli

2022
Unbound – Unseen Amsterdam. Curated by Damarice Amao (Centre Pompidou)
Knotenpunkt Festival 22 – Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg One of a kind – The Ravestijn Gallery

2021
The constructed image – The Ravestijn Gallery
Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg

2020
Keep your eyes peeled, AFF- Galerie, Berlin

2019
Augmented Dreams, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin Art Week
Talk!Project, Museum Frieder Burda | Salon Berlin, Berlin
Lishui Photo Festival, Art Museum, Lishui, China.
Knotenpunktfestival, Affenfaust Galerie, Hamburg
Viva Con Agua, Millerntorgallery, Hamburg

2018
1st Southwest-German Art Prize, Esslingen
Affordable Art Fair, Hamburg
Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum, Athens, GR
Christie’s auction for Viva Con Agua

2017
Black Box Helsinki Heliumcowboy Artspace, Hamburg Transcending Time. A Connectiva Collective show, Athens Christie’s auction for Viva Con Agua

2016
Illustrative 16 – The Biennale for Illustration and Graphic Art Nitra Gallery, Thessaloniki Gallery Johanssen, Berlin

2015
Galerie KD Kunst, Worpswede Multidimensional images and pictorial objects, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin Galerie Fonis, Düsseldorf
Galerie Flierl, Berlin Gallery Sijac, Seoul, Süd-Korea
STROKE, München (Kunstmesse)

2014
Bremer Kunstfrühling, Bremen No Color Art Gallery, San Sebastian, Spain The less you know, the more you see – Westwerk Hamburg
The Ballery, Berlin Paul Smith Mayfair Shop, London Cheapart Gallery, Athens
Pop-Up Art Gallery Berlin
Gallery Flierl, Berlin

2013
Incubarte 6. Festival Internacional de Arte, Valencia, Spain.Konnektor – Forum for Art. HannoverVelada de Santa Lucia, Maracaibo, Venezuela.

2012
Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg: Master’s exhibition
Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg

2010
Academy of Fine Arts, Hamburg: Bachelor’s exhibition2009
Goethe Institut Thessaloniki

2008
Galerie Montgrand, Marseille. 2006 
Vorwerkstift Gallery, Hamburg

2005 
Kunstverein Freudenstadt (Society of Arts, Freudenstadt)