Heidrun Rathgeb

Heidrun Rathgeb paints small, intimate pictures in egg tempera on wooden panels prepared in the traditional way with layers of fine gesso, occasionally combined with oil. Each painting begins with plein air sketches, often made at night, which she calls daily epiphanies; she works from these lived moments and never from photographs. Her subjects come from her surroundings and from long hikes through the Alps, Norway and Scotland: moonlit water, starry skies, a jetty at dusk, a window at night, alongside quiet domestic and family scenes. The luminous, patiently layered surfaces look back to early Sienese painting, Winifred Nicholson and Paula Modersohn-Becker.