Angelika Kahl, Contemporary Artist Painter

1952 born in Hamburg / Germany - married since 1975 - two adult sons
1978 overseas stay in São Paulo/ Brazil for five years
1983 return to Hamburg

"The more we ask of ourselves or the more our duties require from us, the more we are dependent on meditation as a source of power, the permanent reconciliation (balance) between mind and soul.
Only through meditation we are able to free ourselves of everyday issues and gain a distance".

Hermann Hesse

Biography

The Hamburg artist Angelika Kahl is known in International galleries since 1966. Gallery owners and visitors are fascinated by her contemporary painting which is based on nature and its contemplative beauty.

Already as a child she busied herself with crayons, paintbrushes and colours. She loved to paint and dreamt of exhibitions. In spite of this she studied mathematics and German and became a dedicated teacher. For five years she taught at the Colégio Visconte de Porto Seguro in Sao Paulo. Returning from Brazil she developed her own style of painting which she calls “impressionistic naturalism”. Undeterred by contemporary movementsshe does not let them influence her style. In between she has created a number of imposing works of art.

For Angelika Kahl landscape painting is not a worn-out expression of art. On the contrary her paintings represent in a contemplative, charming way,wonderful perspectives of the beauty of our world. The viewers feel the peaceful atmosphere of the paintingsand the consensus is overwhelming.

Her pictures are mostly divided by the horizon. The sky is large and wide, below you find the landscapes with exact details. In the last years her paintings have changed in as far as you see more free space in the form of sky and water and fewer exact portrayals of landscapes, sailing boats, lighthouses etc. This contrast increases the tension in her paintings.

Angelika Kahl has visited many parts of the world andall her impressions are expressed in her paintings.At the time being she is working on portraits of people and is fascinated by the discovery of the soul behind the faces.

Since 2011 she has regularly been invited to take part in international in events, fairs and exhibitions.These international exhibitions have taken her to Beijing, New York, London, Paris, Rome Tokyo, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Firenze, Stockholm and Strasbourg.

In the beginning was the blue.

When I first travelled to the Maldives in 1976, I was fascinated by this incredible variety of cobalt, indigo, ultramarine, turquoise, Prussian blue, Caribbean blue, royal blue, navy blue and Parisian blue and all other shades between turquoise, white and green....

Since then, my heart has been racing when I revel in these colour combinations, when my brush breathes a southern atmosphere into the white canvas and when I paint the sky blue in the face of Hamburg's uniform grey...

Clouds, water, mountains and vast landscapes that make my heart soar are my favourite subjects... all of them carry personal feelings and are points of light from my wonderful journeys. My approach to landscape painting is thus exclusively shaped by personal feelings and biographical experiences.

The atmosphere of devotion and silence expresses the awe and respect I feel when experiencing these landscapes.

Capturing faces and making portraits first opened up to me during a trip to Tanzania in 2010. There I was asked to photograph people whose godparents in Hamburg would be happy to receive photos. The change of light and shadow on the skin and the recognition of their soul fascinated me.  When the person on the screen suddenly looked at me and signalled a sure feeling that we had found each other, it touched me deeply.

Capturing a human soul is of course far more exciting than the railing of lighthouses and their curves in the sunlight. Yet this love is very old and goes back to my childhood. Because actually, in the beginning ... it was the lighthouse and not the blue. Today, I can use the lighthouses to tell my travel stories .... Each has its own memory ..... all have their own personal story.

„Painting is my inner home, my place for pondering fundamental questions,
my opportunity to retreat into a place of silence and rest, where I regain vitality and energy.
Through my art I hope and aim to inspire people to go their own inner journeys".
She describes her style of art as "impressionistic naturalism".
The intended interaction of color as the primary creation and the
exactness of several compositions raise the tense in her paintings.