Heidrun Rathgeb b. 1967

° Tettnang, Germany

Currently living in southern Germany.

'As we walked'

I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life
Mary Oliver

Love, love, love, says Percy.
And hurry as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.

Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.

How do we render the complexity of our most layered, interior lives? Heidrun Rathgeb is an observer of reality, using her paintbrush to document and remember the most intimate, everyday moments of existence. To stand in front of her paintings, or to hold one in your hand—as they are often small—is to bear witness to quiet moments and small joys: her daughters asleep on a sofa, the geometry of a blanket after a long day’s walk, the moon shimmering through a window, two cups of tea on a sill.

Since graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in London, Rathgeb has turned to her immediate environment as the source for her luminous egg tempera paintings on panel. As a student, she painted on a large scale but soon reverted to smaller panels that could adjust to the dimensions of life: domestic spaces, six children, nature, land and water. Rathgeb is as much an artist as she is an adventurer, her life punctuated by long walks among the lakes and landscapes of Europe, with their mountains and vast expanses of sky.