ARTUS

I am ARTUS, a painter of geometric abstraction from Cologne. I work with acrylic paints on stretched canvas or panels. The majestic serenity of the square, this fundamental form of all geometry, and the radiant energy of its rich, pure colors have deeply captivated me. The continuum of color palettes, the combinatorics of arrangements, the serial variations—infinite expanses of compositional possibilities open up—and are far from being adequately explored. My inspiration comes from the Bauhaus and European Modernism of the 1920s, and from the Anglo-American cultural sphere, from hard-edge painting and Color Field painting. The first catalyst for this direction for me was Paul Klee with his painting "Super Chess..." To name just a few of my inspirations: Johannes Itten, Anton Stankowski, Richard Paul Lohse, Josef Albers, Gerhard Richter, Max Bill, Kenneth Noland, Victor Vasarely, Zdenek Sykora… Art has fascinated me since I was 17, when I won a book about Kandinsky as a high school graduation prize. A guest semester at the Cologne School of Applied Arts for Graphic Design with Professor Wewerka led me through a project entitled "Copying Kandinsky until you get him out of your head and are free for your own." However, the real rollout with tangible, presentable results only came for me during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2022 and 2023—when the 100x100 formats were created in my home office—and soon demanded to be released…

I am currently studying art history at the University of Bonn.