Paula Kamps

Paula Kamps (born in 1990, Germany) lives and works in Chicago. Kamps graduated as a Meisterschülerin from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2016, having studied under Tomma Abts and Elizabeth Peyton.

The practice of Paula Kamps explores mediums peripheral to painting; it focuses mainly on a technique halfway between watercolour and drawing, emphasising the brilliance and intensity of color offered by these processes. Her work, between figuration and abstraction, gives pride of place to large flat areas – « stains » as Andre Butzer says – which, skillfully spread over the canvas, reveal human figures, scenes of daily life, always fragmented. With figures often hazy or obscured and a recurring, but arcane symbology, Kamps’ work’s elegantly hint on subjects persistent throughout art history – the unreliability of memory, the evasiveness of meaning, and our continual desire to understand one another.

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Kamps has been the subject of solo exhibitions at M. LeBlanc, Chicago (2024 & 2021); eastcontemporary, Milan (2022); Mou Project, Hong Kong (2022); Sans titre, Paris (2021); Kunstverein Heppenheim (2019), Spazio Nea, Naples (2018) as well as Kunsthaus Mettmann (2014).

Her work has been shown in group exhibitions at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (2024); Galerie Bernd Kugler, Innsbruck (2024); TheMerode, Brussels (2024); The Arts Club of Chicago (2024); Secci Gallery, Florence (2024); The Green Gallery, Milkwaukee (2024); Galería Heinrich Ehrhardt, Madrid (2023); Good Weather, North Little Rock (2023); M.LeBlanc, Chicago (2022); David Zwirner’s Platform (online) (2022); Sans titre, Paris (2022); NÉVÉ, Los Angeles (2022); LVH, London (2021); Andrea Festa Fine Art, Rome (2021); SLICE, Ufer Studios, Berlin (2020); Orchard32, New York (2019); Carbon12, Dubai (2018) and at Kunstverein Reutlingen (2018).

She regularly publishes her poetry in form of artist’s books and was recently an artist-in-residence at Ox-Bow, MI after having attended residences in NYC (LESP, 2016), Italy (Viaggio in Sicilia VI, 2014-15) and France (Coco Collection, 2011). Later this spring, the artist will be part of the residency program at The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Carraig-na-gCat.

Paula Kamps’s works are featured in the permanent collection of × Museum, Beijing.