Peppi Bottrop

Peppi Bottrop is an abstract painter, who experiments with coal, graphite, acrylic and soot. Bottrop grew up in the 1990s in the industrial district of Ruhrgebiet, a once prosperous coal-mining region of the Ruhr that faced processes of foreclosure during his childhood. Unused buildings began to be reclaimed by nature, with soot, coal and fauna cohabitating in increasingly wild forested areas. These post-fossil ruinous sites left a lasting impression on Bottrop, and the dynamics between manufactured and organic materials still inspires his canvases today. Working in a distinct palette of greys, blacks and deep blues, the artist assuredly marks his canvases with tangled knots of gestures. Concrete lines slashed through the composition meet tender curves and tousled, loose forms resembling petals, stems or trunks. Each of these large-scale pieces is charged with an immense sense of admiration for nature’s perseverance, while the dark hues also offer mournful sentiments to both the families facing precarity in post-industrial areas and the destruction of the habitat itself. While studying at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Bottrop had Albert Oehlen, Andreas Shulze and Jutta Koether as tutors who each undoubtedly informed his confident mark making, eye for abstract compositions and assertive deployment of colour.