Heidrun Rathgeb

Sea View is pleased to present I Watch the Mountain Changing Colour, an exhibition of new paintings by German artist Heidrun Rathgeb (b. 1967, Tettnang, DE).

Rathgeb lives and works in the Black Forest, a densely wooded mountain range in southwestern Germany that she often depicts in her work. Using very small brushes and multiple layers of handmade egg tempera, a luminous fast-drying medium, her journalistic paintings are often no larger than the palm of her hand. They always begin with quick sketches made on the fly, which she calls her “daily epiphanies,” drawn directly – and tenderly – from observation.

“When I draw, I don’t plan what to capture,” she explains. “I sit, observe, and wait to be surprised. The drawing tells me who I am.”

Her subjects are deeply personal and rooted in rural daily life: her six children, the quiet interiors of her farmhouse, the slow choreography of light around Lake Constance, and the Norwegian fjords she often visits. “I would never draw a stranger. I’m more of an introverted person,” she says. Drawing and painting for Rathgeb aren’t acts of invention, but of devotion, ways of forming connection through careful attention. “When my children were small, I would just be there. Drawing is how I relate, by stepping back and watching.”

Rathgeb received her MFA in London at the Slade School of Fine Art (1996-99), after attending the Byam Shaw School of Art (1993-96). She has held recent solo exhibitions at John Martin Gallery, London, UK (2024); Arusha Gallery, London, UK (2024); and 532 Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, New York, NY(2023). Group exhibitions include Gallery Sofie van de Velde, Antwerp, BR (2024); Bark Berlin Gallery, Berlin, DE (2022); and the Royal Academy, London, UK (2022).