WM Recommends: Harm Gerdes: Mediterranea at Kunsthalle Darmstadt

Harm Gerdes, ‹‹Soul Pattern II››, 2022. © Photo: Christoforos Doulgeris, 2025. Courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens

By WM February 26, 2026

From the press release:

The exhibition brings together over 20 large-format canvas paintings by German-Cypriot artist Harm Gerdes, created since 2021. While studying under Katharina Grosse at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, he devoted himself entirely to painting and developed his own technique of pouring acrylic instead of applying oil with brushes, tassels and rollers. Raised in Darmstadt, he has been living and working in Athens since 2023. His art, which has gained international recognition, combines elements of Art Nouveau and classical modernism with influences from more recent painting.

"Harm Gerdes invents a new language (...) It has a lot to do with our present, with the world of screens, with the radical change in vision that is currently taking place, whereby this painting – and this is its strength – never picks up on the sign language of our screen world, but finds equivalents for it, metaphors that stand independently." (Robert Fleck) WM