Ralph Gelbert

Ralph Gelbert (* 1969 in Landau in the Palatinate ) is a German painter. He lives in Königsbach near Neustadt an der Weinstrasse / Pfalz.

Life

Ralph Gelbert first studied at the " Accademia Belle Arti " in Florence, for which he received a scholarship in 1993. He then went on to study art and design, which he graduated with a diploma in 1996. Since then, Gelbert has lived as a freelance artist in Königsbach / Pfalz. After numerous study visits to Europe (Italy, Ireland, England, Bosnia-Herzegovina), South America and Africa, as well as attending a master class by Bernd Zimmer (Scotland 2002), Gelbert has also been a lecturer at the Art Academy in Bad Reichenhall and the Art Factory in Vienna. In July 2008, Gelbert organized and directed the first “International Artist Symposium in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse”, which brought together artists from Germany, France, Ireland, Italy and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Gelbert has also been a lecturer in the field of virtual design and interior architecture at the University of Applied Sciences in Kaiserslautern since 2008 . From 2015 to 2018, Ralph Gelbert, together with Stefan Engel and Klaus Hartmann, formed the board of the Association of Palatinate Artists (apk). The most traditional artists' association in Rhineland-Palatinate has existed since 1922 and was able to count prominent personalities such as Max Slevogt, Hans Purrmann, Hermann Croissant and Otto Dill among its members. The apk currently comprises more than 140 selected artists who are dedicated to establishing and maintaining Palatinate art in public discourse.

plant

Gelbert's work is dominated by large-format oil paintings, which are in the Informel tradition , but at the same time show completely new artistic expressions and techniques. The Informel art movement that dominated in the 1950s not only adopted a conventional concept of image based on objects and their recognizability, but also their formative artists such as Ernst Wilhelm Nay , Willi Baumeister and Jackson Pollock simultaneously elevated color from a means of expression and design to an absolute and autonomous pictorial form. Behind the color compositions, which at first glance seem disordered and seemingly random, there is an artistic attitude that primarily wanted to emphasize the importance of the creative act as a process of acting and reacting and the procedural form of the artistic act and therefore renounced a finished concept.

Gelbert also ties in with these achievements and in his paintings, but also smaller works on paper, he designs color worlds that are not to be interpreted as abstract paintings, but are completely non-representational, non-representational and thus obey their own artistic laws. While in Gelbert's early works it is still often possible to recognize linear-geometric structures structuring the pictorial space, the more recent works largely dispense with them. The focus is on the intrinsic artistic value and association potential of color and the often surprising combination of different techniques and materials on the canvas.

Despite the most varied of art-historical influences that are noticeable in Gelbert's work, they are always genuine new creations, in that Gelbert combines, for example, the coloristic tradition with gestural structures. Gelbert is just as inspired by the great masters of color such as Titian or the representatives of symbolic landscape painting such as Caspar David Friedrich as well as by the non-representational art of Informel of the 1950s. The work titles of the paintings like "Hidden Ireland", "Hamptons", "Clew Bay" or "Stromboli" meanwhile also refer to the travel experiences and impressions of the artist, and at the same time to the imagination of the viewer and the interpretation of the painting stimulated. In this respect, Gelbert's works process real color and landscape impressions, the characteristics and essential elements of which the artist usually records on site as sketches - or even in final versions - on his travels.

Others

Ralph Gelbert was the subject of coverage in the following TV formats:

• Landesschau Aktuell Rhineland-Palatinate, “What is art actually worth?”, March 27, 2015
• ARD-Mittagsmagazin, “How is the value of art created?”, May 19, 2015

Exhibitions (selection)

2015

• Art Karlsruhe - Galerie Angelo Falzone, Mannheim, Germany
• Jan Royce Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
• Gallery Z in the Frank-Loebsches-Haus, Landau in der Pfalz, Germany
• The Art Scouts Gallery, Berlin, Germany
• Galerie Neuheisel, Saarbrücken, Germany

2014

• Art Karlsruhe, One Artist Show, Germany
• The Art Scouts Gallery, Berlin, Germany
• Art Gallery Wiesbaden, Germany
• Custom House Gallery, The world from above, Westport, Ireland

2013

• Art Karlsruhe, One Artist Show, Germany
• Galerie Indra, Passau, Germany
• Museum Kahnweiler, Rockenhausen, Germany

2012

• Galerie Neuheisel, Saarbrücken, Germany
• Solomon Fine Art Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
• Art Fair, Battersea Park, London, England
• Hicks Gallery, London, England

2011

• Art Karlsruhe, One Artist Show, Germany
• Kunstverein Pirmasens, Art in the Cube, Germany
• Art Gallery Wiesbaden, painting and drawing, Germany
• Custom House Studios & Gallery, Westport, Ireland

2010

• Hicks Gallery, A Solo Show, London, England
• Art Karlsruhe, One Artist Show, Germany
• Berliner List - Fair for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany
• Galerie Angelo Falzone, Mannheim, Germany

• 2009: Galerie Angelo Falzone, Mannheim, Germany
• 2009: City Museum Zweibrücken (exhibition “Royal Water”), Germany
• 2009: Amateras Annual Paper Exhibition, Sofia, Bulgaria
• 2008: Bourn Vincent Gallery, Ireland
• 2008: Art Gallery, Wiesbaden, Germany
• 2008: Städtische Galerie Speyer (exhibition “Paysage d'abstrait”), Germany
• 2007: If Art Gallery, South Carolina, USA
• 2006: “Summer Exhibition”, Jorgensen Fine Art Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
• 2005: Art Karlsruhe, One Man Show, Germany
• 2005: Art Fair, Cologne, Germany
• 2004: Laboratorio delle Arti, Piacenza, Italy
• 2003: Museo Palazzo Farnese, Piacenza, Italy
• 2002: Künstlerhaus Graz, Austria
• 2001: “Zeitspur” - 25 years of the Netuschil Gallery , Darmstadt, Germany
• 2000: Art Forum, Berlin, Germany
• 1999: Large art exhibition in the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany

literature

• Ulrike Fuchs: Ralph Gelbert. In: Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon (AKL), vol. 51. Munich, Leipzig 2006, p. 171.
• Ralph Gelbert 2009. Catalog on the occasion of the exhibitions "Royal Water", City Museum Zweibrücken (October 2, 2009– November 1, 2009) and "Onte Artist Show", Galerie Angelo Falzone (April 4–7, 2010). ISBN 978-3-9801911-5-9 .
• Ralph Gelbert: The Discovery of Charisma. Chroma Druck & Verlag, Römerberg, 2009. ISBN 978-3-9801911-5-9 .
• Ralph Gelbert: New Informel. Chroma Druck & Verlag, Römerberg, 2011. ISBN 978-3-9801911-6-6 .
• Ralph Gelbert: Hunting. Chroma Druck & Verlag, Römerberg, 2012. ISBN 978-3-9814835-0-5 .
• Ralph Gelbert: Art band. "Les Paradis Artificiels". Utopias made of matter, color and intoxication. Wellhöfer Verlag, Mannheim, 2014. ISBN 978-3-95428-161-9 .

Exhibition catalogs

• 1997 - catalog - Ralph Gelbert - on the essence of movement
• 1999 - Catalog - Ralph Gelbert - Do you know the country
• 2003 - Catalog for the exhibition Dr. Ulrike Rathert in Minden, Ralph Gelbert - Meeting Grounds
• 2005 - Catalog - Ralph Gelbert - 27 days on Stromboli
• 2007 - Catalog - Ralph Gelbert - The discovery of the landscape
• 2008 - Catalog - Ralph Gelbert - Acts of Creation in the field of tension between chaos and cosmos