German artist Peter Zimmerman is best known for his paintings that use liquid epoxy resin as a medium. Pigmented and poured by the bucket onto canvases, the resin has the appearance of liquid sugar and Zimmerman’s finished works look like translucent candy or colored glass.

Zimmerman’s most recent exhibition as of this writing saw the artist flooding several rooms of the Museum für neue Kunst in Freiburg, Germany with his colored resins, giving the floors a liquid look and allowing visitors to feel as though they were walking on water. For such a work, it’s likely that Zimmerman would have done most of the work on site.

Like Helen Frankenthaler, the act of pouring liquid colours onto a canvas is integral to Zimmerman’s practice. In the above photo, it’s clear that he probably moves between different paintings throughout a work day, pouring resin onto one and then working on another while it sets. In addition to epoxy, Zimmerman also uses airbrushing techniques to enhance the look and color of the works, adding extra depth and dimension. With all this molten epoxy and airbrush painting, I’m sure respirators are a must in Zimmerman’s studio.

While the works appear completely abstract at first glance, in many cases the artist bases his images on found photographs and magazine ads that he then digitally manipulates until they are unrecognizable abstractions. While it’s difficult to make out in the above photo, I wonder if the separate room at the back of the studio is where some of this planning action might take place. It could also be separated for extra spray-painting procedures.

Zimmerman was born in Freiburg, Germany, and is now based in Cologne. The artist recently collaborated with designers at Make Up Forever to create artwork out of cosmetic lip gloss, a material with properties similar to his usual media of choice.  

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