The catalogue with a foreword by Gertrude Wagenfeld-Pleister (Chairperson of the Kunstverein), a text by Alicja Schindler and an interview with Marc LeBlanc accompanies the solo exhibition Tropic of Bottrop at Kunstverein Oldenburg (3 May–21 July 2024). The show forms as a reflection on destruction, rampant growth and the emergence of new complexities and orders.

Known in his student days as “Peppi from Bottrop”, the descriptor eventually solidified into subject: Peppi Bottrop. Referring to his origins in the Ruhr region of Germany, it also evokes the association with structural crisis. The Punk movement is one contemporary reaction to the social consequences of such crises in industrial society, and its original force can still be felt in Peppi Bottrop’s imagery today. Yet, his oeuvre goes far beyond this.

Bottrop’s large-format paintings fascinate with a style in which elements of “wild painting” and the development and recognition of structures result in a completely independent formal language. His choice of materials is also stylistically distinctive: charcoal, graphite pencils, metal pigments, rust converters and acrylic in keeping with the colourfulness of the “Rust Belt”.

Designed by Studio Thomas Spallek.