👨 About the host Julien Delagrange: Julien Delagrange is an art historian, contemporary artist, and the founder and director of CAI. Delagrange studied Science of Arts at Ghent University, Belgium, and worked for the Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels, the Jan Vercruysse Foundation, the Ghent University Library, and has contributed to the international contemporary art scene as an art critic, lecturer, curator, gallery director, consultant, advisor, and as an artist. As an artist, he is represented by Galerie Sabine Bayasli in Paris, France, and Gallery Space60 in Antwerp, Belgium.
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Table of contents: 0:00 – Intro 01:19 – 1. Francis Alÿs 02:08 – 2. Peter Doig 02:52 – 3. Adrian Ghenie 03:42 – 4. David Hockney 04:34 – 5. Per Kirkeby 05:24 – 6. Julie Mehretu 06:08 – 7. Gerhard Richter 06:54 – 8. Alex Katz 07:38 – 9. Anselm Kiefer 08:34 – 10. Neo Rauch 09:10 – 11. Wayne Thiebaud 10:02 – 12. Luc Tuymans
When we hear of landscape painting, one must think immediately of the earliest landscapes of Joachim
Paternir, the more romantic landscapes of John Constable, or Claude Monet's impressionist take
on the genre. But landscape painting never ended, as for instance the cubists and expressionists
continued to use the landscape as a genre in their journey towards abstraction. Our collective memory
seems to categorise landscape painting as something of the past, a nostalgic genre,
or an obsolete practice, which has no place in a day and age in which art is dominated by
abstraction, installations, conceptual, or minimal art. However, when analysing our recent art history,
the opposite seems to be true. Contemporary landscape painting is a genre in which outdoor
environments or natural scenery are depicted. Think of mountains, fields, forests, rivers,
or seas. The artist does not strive to obtain a pure naturalist depiction, rather to develop a
contemporary perspective on the genre. In this article, we are pleased to present you a reasoned
anthology of the best landscape painters today. Welcome to Contemporary Landscape Painting,
A Complete Survey. We start with one of the most important artists in the world,
none other than Francis Alice. Born in 1959 in Antwerp, Belgium, Alice currently resides and
works in Mexico City. Arguably, Alice is best known for his absurdly poetic political films
and performances. However, the Belgian artist who is intrigued by everyday life, also takes on
painting and landscapes in particular, resulting in painterly works most often small in scale.
He finds the idol in troubled countries, rethinking the narrative potential of
landscape painting. Symbolically, it is a multi-disciplinary artist such as Francis
Alice, occupied with video art and performance, dedicating oneself to the nostalgic genre of
landscape painting, illustrating its never-ending relevance in today's art world. Up next, we have
a true painter's painter, and one of the most important contemporary figurative painters of
his generation, Peter Doig. Born in 1959 in Edinburgh, the United Kingdom, Doig currently
resides and works in Trinidad, Port of Spain. His landscapes are often referred to as magical
realism. The British figurative painter paints from found photographic material and from memory.
His landscapes are filled with mystery, enigma, skill and implausible things.
We find different elements from different places, all in a single image. From exotic
animals and tropical beaches, up to Canadian backdrops and mysterious kayaks. Now, we travel
to Romania for the works of Adrian Gini, arguably the most important figure for the remarkable
upswing of Cluj as a vibrant art city. Gini is a contemporary painter, born in 1977 in Beia Mare,
Romania, and is currently working and living between Cluj, Romania, and Berlin, Germany.
Gini is best known for his dazzling paintings filled with movement, in which his subjects
take on voluptuous shapes in a collage-like composition. The setting for these figures is
most often a landscape. Gini turns to the landscape time and time again, as the wavy horizon and
atmospheric perspective of the blue skyline become a key reference point in the painting,
to start to behold and grasp his composition. In the tradition of old masters painting using
the landscape to depict their scenes, Gini takes on landscape painting in a similar,
yet utmost contemporary manner. The iconic painter David Hockney, born in 1937 in Bradford,
the United Kingdom, has taken on many quintessential painterly genres.
Think of his portrait paintings, double portraits and still-life paintings.
However, since the turn of the millennium, Hockney has focused more and more on landscapes,
often painting en plein air. The British artist has lived in Yorkshire and currently resides
and works in Normandy, France, where he continues to document his surroundings onto the canvas.
As always, his environment has had a strong impact on his artistic practice.
From to rocky mountains, to the fields off Yorkshire, to the blossoming trees of Normandy.
Hockney has been without any doubt one of the most prolific landscape painters of his generation.
Born in 1938 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Percurkby is a contemporary painter who passed away in 2018
in the Danish capital. Influenced by abstract expressionism in the 1950s, his early training
as a geologist resulted in abstracted landscapes examining monumental and geological processes.
Percurkby succeeds in capturing an unfolding process of millions of years with his painterly
practice. The painter, sculptor, performance artist, writer and set designer found timeless
inspiration in his studies of geology and ancient Mayan art, encompassing expeditions to the world's
most fascinating places and natural scenery in Greenland, Central America or the Arctic.
As a result, staggering and often monumental landscapes make Percurkby one of the most
important landscape painters of recent art history. Born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,
Julie Mehretu is a contemporary artist living and working in New York. Mehretu distinguishes
herself in the art world with her monumental paintings and frescoes of marks, shapes,
lines and other pictorial elements. Marked by a futurist aesthetic, Mehretu combines various
media such as acrylic paint, graphite, ink or charcoal into her almost architectural paintings.
Historical and fictional landscapes seem to collide. She takes on socio-political structures
embedded in our environment, resulting in abstract yet panoramic landscapes inspired by cartography,
popular culture or urban architecture. Born in 1932 in Dresden, Germany, Gerhard Richter
is arguably the most important contemporary painter today, working and residing in Cologne.
His oeuvre is marked by the ubiquitous dichotomy of figuration versus abstraction.
On the one side of the spectrum, one can find his meticulously rendered photo paintings,
whereas on the other side, we encounter his expressive abstract paintings pushing
blobs of colored paint on the canvas with an enormous squeegee. With both his figurative
photo paintings and his pure abstract canvases, one encounters contemporary landscape painting.
With some works, the distinction seems to fade in his characteristic haze and blurred effect.
Richter has painted almost thousands of landscapes throughout his illustrious career,
making him one of the most important contemporary painters within this specific genre.
Up next we have the American artist Alex Katz. Born in 1927 in Brooklyn, Alex Katz is one of the
most celebrated painters of today, and currently resides and works between New York and Lincolnville.
His highly recognizable visual language is known as pop realism, painting in a naturalistic manner
influenced by the large planes of color reminiscent to the silk screen images of pop art.
With his landscapes, Katz aims to capture the quickness of light.
As with David Hockney, the American painter has been increasingly interested and occupied with
the landscape as his subject matter as the years pass. He alternates flat planes of color with
energetic brush strokes, in a quest for the ideal balance of the landscape within the painting.
Moving on, we have the monumental and haunting landscapes by Anselm Kiefer.
Born in 1945 in Donaushingen, Germany, Kiefer is one of the most famous contemporary painters
and resides and works in Paris, France. The German artist grew up in the aftermath of the
Second World War, confronted with the ruins and lingering effects of a German post-war trauma,
pioneering new European painting. His works are marked by political issues and so-called
historical amnesia. His massive landscapes, often using liquid metals as his paint, incorporate the
spiritual, mythology and cultural memory. The prism of Kiefer seems to depict the world as a
A battlefield of media in the natural world, filled with glass, metal, soil, concrete and ashes.
Further, we encounter another German virtuoso. Born in 1960 in Leipzig, Germany, Neo Rauch is a
neo-surrealist contemporary painter and one of the main figures of the so-called Neue Leipziger Schule,
where the artist continues to work and reside. Marked by a high contrast in color and tone,
the absurd and enigmatic scenes of Rauch are often taking place in a landscape in the tradition of
German romance. Doing so, his compositions are intentionally reminiscent to old master painting
or social realism with a surreal twist. Panoramic landscapes or cityscapes are populated by his
characteristic figures in absurd positions, actions or interactions. Born in 1920 in Arizona, Wayne
Thiebaud is an internationally lauded contemporary painter who passed away in 2021, aged 101,
in California, the United States of America. Associated with pop art, new realism and the
Bay Area figurative movement, Thiebaud is best known for his meticulously painted still lives,
landscapes and everyday life. The American artist succeeds in transforming banal or nostalgic
subjects into contemporary masterpieces by giving an uncanny depth and strangeness to his works.
Doing so, Thiebaud can transform a deceptively simple landscape into a colorful and virtuoso
painting, adding blues, greens and reds in his composition, transcending the banality of reality
with the medium of painting. We conclude the top 12 with none other than Luc Tiemens. Born in 1958
in Mortsel, Belgium, Tiemens lives and works in Antwerp. A pioneer of new European painting,
the Belgian artist is one of the most important painters of his generation.
His characteristic brush strokes and muted palette enable him to take on any subject while
remaining visually most recognizable. From a portrait to a still life, from Mickey Mouse to
a landscape painting, Tiemens examines the medium of painting focusing strongly on image theory,
the collective memory and contemporary culture. Doing so, he also takes on landscape painting.
For instance, with his painting titled Mountains from 2016, Tiemens deceives our perception with
his title. At first glance, the painting seems to be a landscape of mountains. However, the source
material is a photograph of lumps of dirt he had thrown on a piece of aluminum foil on the floor.
As a result, Tiemens challenges our assumption on depicting an object or subject,
while simultaneously alerting us for the threats nature is facing. Make sure to watch our video,
The Story of David Hockney next, and feel free to consider subscribing to stay posted
for more contemporary art. Thank you for watching and see you soon.
