Bernard Ammerer | Connection
- Bernard Ammerer
About the exhibition
"Connection" – Bernhard Ammerer at the Samuelis Baumgarte Gallery
June 28 – August 30, 2025
To mark the opening, the Samuelis Baumgarte Gallery invites you to an exclusive artist talk between Bernhard Ammerer and Alexander Baumgarte. This conversation offers a rare opportunity to gain insight into the work and mindset of this remarkable painter.
A Connection to the World – Painting Between Presence and Transcendence
From June 28 to August 30, 2025, the Samuelis Baumgarte Gallery in Bielefeld presents an outstanding solo exhibition by Austrian painter Bernhard Ammerer (*1978, Vienna) under the title “Connection.” This exhibition is more than a presentation of recent works – it is an invitation to pause, to reflect, and to reconnect: with nature, with art, and with oneself.
Painting as Silent Resonance – Making the Invisible Visible
In an age where images are often loud, glaring, and overstimulated, Bernhard Ammerer embraces subtlety, depth, and lasting impact. His works do not tell stories in a traditional sense. Instead, they create pictorial spaces in which landscape, light, and memory intertwine into a poetic resonance. Nature, for Ammerer, is not merely a subject – it is a mirror of emotional states, a realm for introspection.
Paintings such as “Forest Road,” “7:30h,” or “Wonderboy 2” (all 2019) are characterized by atmospheric density. They depict deserted paths, quiet moments at dusk, and fragile in-between states – painterly meditations on the human condition in the face of the world. In “Moonrise 1” (2024), for example, a dramatic interplay of light pierces the dark cloud cover – a glimmer of hope in the midst of silence.
Construction and Contemplation – The Grid as a Mental Space
A recurring stylistic element in Ammerer’s work is the grid, which overlays sections of the canvas like a delicate mesh, as seen in “Wonderboy 2.” It creates a tension between order and nature, structure and emotion – a visual inquiry into the act of perception itself: How do we see? What do we truly perceive?
In the monumental work “Thank You Nature, Fuck You Nature” (2023), Ammerer takes this concept to a radical level: instead of using paint, he constructs a dense forest entirely out of handwritten words. Thousands of inscriptions form the image – a dense, contradictory body of text that reflects our ambivalent relationship with nature, torn between reverence, overwhelm, and appropriation.
Connection – A Title as Guiding Principle
The title “Connection” refers to more than our link to the external world. It also speaks to an inner gaze, a reconnection with what is essential – with what lies beneath the surface. Ammerer’s works invite us to slow down, to look deeper, to feel rather than merely observe.
This exhibition is a compelling call to reclaim presence, to experience depth in an increasingly fleeting world – and it stands as a quiet triumph of painting.
About the Artist
Bernhard Ammerer was born in 1978 in Vienna. After initially pursuing studies in law, he turned to his true calling: art. From 2003 to 2010, he studied at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna under Johanna Kandl. His works have been exhibited internationally – from Vienna and New York to Qingdao – and are part of prestigious private and institutional collections.
