André Gleichmann
Biography
André Gleichmann was born in 1981 in a small village in East Germany. His world ended a few hundred meters behind his parents’ house at the German Wall. But André’s thoughts went beyond that.
He began drawing at an early age, as most children do, but the kindergarten teacher noticed that he drew people more realistically than the children his age. Wondering why there were no pictures in his books, he began to draw them into the pages himself.
André always got good grades in art class, but he never did what he was supposed to, which caused tension between him and his teachers. He used to draw comics in his free time, which he lent to a classmate for a few pennies. His first “business” was born 😉
At the age of 15 he became interested in graffiti and started spraying. Legally at friends’ houses or during night and fog actions. As a young adult, André found himself more interested in the arts than in school. He escaped into his world of drawings and used the breaks to paint the whole blackboard with wild stuff or portraits of teachers.
After high school, André began an apprenticeship as a heating engineer. Once again, he preferred to spend his time drawing rather than working. Drawings were suddenly found on every customer’s drywall. This earned him the praise of his colleagues and the wrath of his boss.
The desire to make art the center of his life grew. After finishing his apprenticeship, André decided to study toy design. There he followed his passion and began to feel that he was on the right track.
After his studies, he moved to Fürth, Germany in 2006. Since then, he has been working successfully as a product designer for toys.
During his years of study, he created numerous drawings in a variety of media (e.g. pencil, ink, watercolor, oil, airbrush & acrylic). In addition, André learned to model with clay, build toys out of wood, and design dolls and teddy bears out of fabric. A good basis for complex creative thinking, for training the mind’s eye and for internalizing what he sees.
In his early twenties, André was fascinated by the different shapes of people and how to use light to create a scene and atmosphere. His favorite subject at that time was to paint nude female bodies and to convey different emotions and stories. He used oil, acrylic, pencil, watercolor, crayon and ink on different backgrounds.
After this period, he switched to abstract art and learned different styles to express political statements or his feelings. During this time, he worked obsessively at night and on weekends in between his day job. This intensity can still be seen in some of his paintings from this abstract period.
As his life and interests began to shift from intense partying and hanging out with friends to focusing on work and sports, he discovered a new source of inspiration. This was the beginning of the current period.
His sketchbooks began to show more and more watercolor and pencil drawings of landscapes, streets and cities from his travels. With the change in lifestyle, he discovered the beauty of nature. Nature we created as humans in dystopian scenes from cities & streets, but also for powerful and charged landscapes where humans play a minor role. As a current medium he uses acrylics on canvas or panel out of his intuition without any sketches.
With all of his experience, André Gleichmann creates paintings that awaken emotions behind the visible and trigger the question “What is beyond?”.
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CV – Education
Education
2017 & 2018
Akt painting, Fürth, Germany – Volkshochschule
since 2006
Design and Development at “Bruder Spielwaren GmbH und CoKG Fürth
2005
Aquarelle painting , Eisfeld, Germany – Painting & Art school
2003– 2006
Bachelor of Arts, Germany – Sonneberg, Staatliche Berufsbildende Schule Sonneberg
Exhibition History
2023
Germany – Fuerth: Endlich GmbH
2021
Italy – Milano: M.A.D.S. Art Gallery
Austria – Graz: Art Factory
2018
Germany – Nuremberg: Kater Murr – Artverwandt II
2017
Germany – Nuremberg: Weinerei Nürnberg – Artverwandt I
2005
Germany – Meiningen: ElanClub Meiningen
2002
Germany – Erlau: Alte Gießerei Erlau
- April 15, 2023
