ART ROTTERDAM 2026

For this edition of Art Rotterdam, we present new works by Andreas Steinbrecher, born in Kazakhstan and based in Düsseldorf.

The presentation no longer understands the pictorial line as an expressive gesture, but as a deliberate and constructed act. Steinbrecher’s work reflects a broader tendency among younger painters to rethink the relationship between drawing and painting.

Rather than working directly onto the surface, composition unfolds in stages. The sketch becomes fundamental: a site where synthesis occurs. In Steinbrecher’s case, this process combines manual precision with digital tools, allowing him to construct images through the layering of references—from art history to his own drawings, imagination, and dreamlike imagery.

Two compositional principles define the paintings: a color palette that embraces softness, and a spatial depth generated through the stratification of pre-composed elements. Within this structure, animals, landscapes, sculptures, trees, rocks, and turbulent seas emerge—forming scenes that suggest narratives without resolving them.

Steinbrecher’s painting captures duration rather than a fixed moment. What unfolds is not a frozen image, but an extended present: a continuous state in which a gathering of cats may appear to hold the world in suspension, or a narrow path reveals, almost unexpectedly, a sculptural presence.