Jutta Rika Bressem

German abstract painter Jutta Bressem constructs her paintings out of a mixture of mastery and intuition. While working, she allows her momentary feelings and instincts to guide the evolution of her compositions, but the harmonious structures and intense color relationships that emerge through this process reveal a mature artist with the eye of a poet, and command over her medium. Working in mixed media (including acrylic, oil, pastel, and charcoal), Bressem begins her process with a method similar to automatic drawing, making “random sketches” she says, and “roughly outlines areas of color,” which she then revises over and over again, pushing towards an inner feeling of resolution. Her textured, painterly surfaces celebrate the artist’s hand, while the dreamlike layers of paint draw the eye into an illusionistic cloud of abstraction full of drama and emotion. Her method is not all about control. She allows room for chance to intervene, following the footsteps of her art historical influences, such as the American Abstract Expressionist Joan Mitchell, and the German Abstract Expressionist Emil Schumacher. Bressem earned her degree in painting and communication from the Academy of Art and Design in Wiesbaden, Germany. Her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout Germany, as well as in the USA, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, France and Poland. She is a member of the Academy of Art and Design in Wiesbaden.