Summer Time

Harald Klemm is a diverse artist. As a photographer, filmmaker, and painter, he combines impressions, motives, and themes through his typically fantastical form of story telling.

In his paintings he celebrates the mood and colors of summer, glowing richly in the sunlight. These emerge as loaded atmospheric scenery, with his characteristic summer homes embedded in dense vegetation. Based on the perfect syntheses of photographic realism and artistic gesture, his scenes transform into vividly colored idylls through the use of unconventional fine points or shimmering textures and latticing.

On wood or canvas, with intensely pigmented acrylic colors, he relies on luminous expression to stylize ideal landscapes. Klemm seems to carry us off to a paradise of secret, hard-to-get-to-hideaways. His houses and scenes depict familiar comforts, such as wide park-landscapes blooming with intense color.

Above all, his pictures represent ideals. They awaken the longing in us to withdraw from the turmoil of a hectic life in the city. The light reinforces the elements and natural silhouettes with rich contrasts of color, partially optically merging the fore and background, but also contrasting them, as they float slightly apart.

The simple wooden structures, small, inviting “summer homes” and the boat houses sitting partially in the reeds exude a magical atmosphere. Klemm’s titles, such as “Red Paradise House” or “Summer Side Park” fuel excitement for a little holiday adventure.

His vivid color scale – reminiscent of a glowing, red sunset – evokes magical moments, creating an illusionary perception. Harald Klemm serves our longing for a special place, the glimmer of which draws our gaze and plunges us into nature. His techniques, however, are not primarily pointillist: rather than dissolve elements with an extreme blend of color, he enhances their long-distance effect. Even in a small format, he virtuously masters the optic of a dense atmospheric space, expanding the meticulous views as if presented on stage.

Christina Wendenburg