Sea View is pleased to present I Watch the Mountains Changing Colour, an exhibition of new paintings by German artist Heidrun Rathgeb. Rathgeb lives and works in southwestern Germany near Lake Constance and the mountain range of the Alps, a landscape that she often depicts in her work. Using small brushes and multiple layers of egg tempera, a luminous fast-drying medium, her paintings are often no larger than the palm of her hand.
Drawing is essential to Rathgeb’s practice. She draws daily in her sketchbook, recording whatever prompts her visually, small observations she calls her “daily epiphanies.” These sketches always form the basis of her paintings; never photographs. She is not interested in the purely visual, but in moments that have been lived. In her paintings, she translates these memories into patterns of color and light, giving them new life and intensity.
Her use of egg tempera is influenced by early Sienese Renaissance painters such as Sassetta, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and Sano di Pietro, whose luminous palettes and narrative sensitivity resonate with her focus on quotidian yet meaningful moments. She also draws inspiration from modern painters like Winifred Nicholson, Paula Modersohn-Becker, and Milton Avery.
Rathgeb’s work is deeply personal, taking its inspiration from daily life: her six children, the warm interiors of her farmhouse, the particular light around Lake Constance, the dark night skies, and her extensive long-distance hikes through the Alps, Norway, and Scotland. For her, drawing and painting for Rathgeb aren’t acts of invention, but of devotion, ways of forming connection through careful attention.
Rathgeb received her MFA in London at the Slade School of Fine Art (1996-99), after attending the Byam Shaw School of Art (1993-96). She has held recent solo exhibitions at John Martin Gallery, London, UK (2024); Arusha Gallery, London, UK (2024); and 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, New York, NY (2023). Group exhibitions include Gallery Sofie van de Velde, Antwerp, BR (2024); Bark Berlin Gallery, Berlin, DE (2022); and the Royal Academy, London, UK (2022).
