Jürgen Jansen

Biography

Jürgen Jansen was born in Rheydt in Mönchengladbach in 1960. From 1981 to 1986 he studied biology, art and design education in Essen, and in 1986 he began his studies at the Karlsruhe Art Academy with Per Kirkeby. In 1989 he moved to Jan Dibbets at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, where the artist now lives and works.
His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Germany, but also in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and the USA.

Jürgen Jansen's artistic roots lie in Informel and abstract expressionism. The artist works with photographic emulsions, pigments, oils, and resins, sometimes thickened into viscous liquids, sometimes thinned into "colorful erosional landscapes." The paintings are created in up to thirty layers of paint on horizontal painting surfaces, which Jansen tilts and turns to initiate color gradients. He pours, he drips, he scrapes, spatulas, and scrapes away again. This makes the color appear disembodied and weightless, but also gives it enormous depth, since the layers do not mix with each other, but only overlap optically. A wide variety of color variations are applied in this way and, after drying and polishing, are then reworked. Finally, each image is sealed with clear lacquer, which creates a strong gloss effect and makes the colors shine.