Closing out the 2024 exhibition program, Cologne-based Galerie Martina Kaiser is presenting the group exhibition “Abstracts, Stills & Landscapes,” featuring a selection of works by Detlev Foth, Matthias Meyer, Sabine Moritz, and Gerhard Richter—with the works by Moritz and Richter being drawn from private collections. On view through December 21, the juxtaposition of each respective artist’s work creates a dialogue around abstraction and where, exactly, its boundaries are. While the dichotomy between representation and total abstraction is often understood as immutable, the present exhibition questions and illustrates the fluidity of exchange between the two.

Matthias Meyer, Thayer Brook (2024). Courtesy of Martina Kaiser, Cologne.

Each of the artists included in “Abstracts, Stills & Landscapes” studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, interestingly. Still, beyond that commonality, each has forged a distinctive creative language that engages with the possibilities of abstraction. Moritz and Richter, who are in fact married, each uses vignettes from reality as a starting point from which the extraneous elements are ultimately parred down or obscured so as to create a sense of alienation. Similarly, Foth looks to scenes from everyday life, which he then transforms through the gestural, emotional painting process.

Matthias Meyer, Maia Lake (2024). Courtesy of Galerie Martina Kaiser, Cologne.

Meyer, who lives and works in Mulheim an der Ruhr, Germany, contributes atmospheric paintings that through his process of abstraction gleans the irreducible, experiential facets of nature and the natural world. Glimpses of water or trees exist just beyond the application of paint, drawing the eye of the viewer ever inward. Earlier this year, he was the subject of a solo show with Galerie Martina Kaiser, “Stream – Water Landscapes,” his first solo in Cologne.

Matthias Meyer, Stream (2024). Courtesy of Galerie Martina Kaiser.

Here, the artist’s preoccupation with bodies of water was showcased through a selection of recent works that visually functioned as experiential portraits of the element within nature. Through these explorations, Meyer also simultaneously confronted the idea of abstraction itself—where does it begin? Where does it end? And, ultimately, is it as wholly separated from representation as commonly assumed? Shown once again within the context of Galerie Martina Kaiser’s latest show, these questions are further examined, both by Meyer as well as the other artists in the show, offering visitors a cogent throughline of inquiry into contemporary reflections on abstraction.

“Abstracts, Stills & Landscapes” is on view at Galerie Martina Kaiser, Cologne, through December 21, 2025.