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The Artistic Practice of Peer Gessing

Peer Gessing is a German painter, artist, and teacher. His diverse body of work encompasses painting, objects, installations, and performances. A central element of his creative process is the technique of overpainting, a practice he has explored since 1986 when he began working with book overpaintings. This method serves as an "aesthetic intervention" where he layers new content over existing substrates, such as magazines, books, advertisements, or three-dimensional objects like televisions, furniture, and motor blocks. In these works, a portion of the original painted surface remains visible, creating a state between destruction and preservation.

His subject matter often focuses on the motif of the face, which appears in his works either individually or in series. These faces are constructed with bold, street art-style brushstrokes, emphasizing outlines, eyes, noses, and mouths while leaving ears and eyebrows only suggested. Through the serial repetition of these heads, Gessing seeks to create a sense of direct liveliness and a rhythmic quality in his imagery.

Themes and Professional Life

Gessing’s work also explores the concept of "defunctionalism," a process where he intervenes with objects—particularly automobiles—to temporarily strip them of their function. By doing so, he transforms these machines into hybrid entities between machine and human. His artistic interests extend to the re-working of both historical masterpieces and the works of contemporary colleagues.

Born in Zehlendorf, Germany, Gessing studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildende Künste Stuttgart. His professional journey has included roles in Biberach an der Riß, Nord-Baden, and The Hague. Since 2010, he has lived and worked in Baden-Baden, where he serves as a teacher of fine arts at the Richard-Wagner-Gymnasium.