Armin Boehm Germany, b. 1972

Armin Boehm (born 1972, Aachen, Germany) belongs to a generation of German painters that has expanded figurative painting beyond questions of representation towards a more fluid understanding of psychological and material experience. Living and working in Berlin, he studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Konrad Klapheck before becoming Meisterschüler of Jörg Immendorff, whose emphasis on painting as a critical and socially engaged medium continues to resonate within Boehm's practice. 

Working primarily in oil on canvas, Boehm frequently incorporates textiles, collage, paper and layered paint into his compositions. These materials function not as decorative additions but as structural components of the image, allowing surfaces to accumulate histories, interruptions and revisions. His paintings evolve through a process in which drawing, colour and material remain in continuous negotiation, producing compositions that resist fixed interpretation.

While his early paintings became recognised for their engagement with urban unrest and collective tension, his recent work has shifted towards a broader investigation of emotional and psychological states. Figures remain central, although they increasingly share the pictorial space with flowers, animals, interiors and still-life arrangements. Rather than operating as symbols, these motifs establish relationships within the painting itself, creating visual situations in which intimacy, estrangement, tenderness, humour and uncertainty coexist.

Boehm's paintings draw upon an unusually broad visual vocabulary. Echoes of Northern European painting, German Expressionism and post-war figuration intersect with references to Symbolism, popular culture, fashion, cinema and everyday observation. Historical quotation never appears as pastiche; instead, these references become active elements within a contemporary pictorial language. His compositions unfold through layered spatial structures in which perspective remains unstable and multiple emotional registers are held simultaneously.

Central to Boehm's practice is the conviction that painting possesses its own capacity to generate meaning. Rather than illustrating predetermined narratives, his works allow form, colour and material to establish relationships that remain deliberately open. Viewers are invited into paintings that function less as depictions of events than as environments of perception, where ambiguity becomes a productive condition and emotional complexity resists simplification.

Over more than two decades, Boehm has established an international exhibition history with solo presentations at KÖNIG GALERIE (Berlin and Munich), Galerie Peter Kilchmann (Zurich), Meyer Riegger (Berlin and Karlsruhe), Francesca Minini (Milan), Tang Contemporary Art (Singapore), Hans Alf Gallery (Copenhagen), Choi & Choi (Seoul), Anita Beckers Contemporary Art (Frankfurt) and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, among others. His work has also appeared in significant institutional exhibitions including Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain Bordeaux, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Städel Museum Frankfurt, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Kunstverein Braunschweig and Berghain's Studio Berlin.  

His paintings are represented in important public and private collections including the Folkwang Museum (Essen), Städel Museum (Frankfurt), KAI 10 | Arthena Foundation (Düsseldorf), Hort Family Collection (New York) and the Zabludowicz Collection (London).

In 2026, Buysse Gallery presented Die schöne Jugend, Boehm’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, bringing together a focused selection of recent paintings that further examined the relationship between figuration, material experimentation and the autonomous language of painting.