With a conceptual approach, Conrad Hübbe (b. 1989) explores the tradition of painting from a sculptural perspective in his monochrome drawings and large-scale installation works. Hübbe uses methods and techniques of translation to trace the ‚Nachleben‘ of the allegorical and symbolic power of images in time, space, and scale.

Referencing images from art history and everyday culture in the middle- and eastern European context of the 19th century, the often unusual provenance of the images are the starting point for his artistic process. Hübbe’s quick drawings in a loose manner are scanned and digitally reconditioned. Expanded in scale, the archival inkjet prints are presented in bright oak frames, without glass. In his drawings, the figurative is juxtaposed to the painterly fetish of the gesture, when the water-based materiality of the ink line is layered with the thickness of oil.

Hübbe’s multi-layered, yet highly reduced drawings are part of installations. Closely linked to the image, historical objects like postcards and stamps serve as reference points and hint towards questions of mobility and circulation of the visual. In effect, Hübbe’s artistic practice reflects on the historical as it is reconfigured under the conditions of the contemporary.

Conrad Hübbe lives and works in Hamburg, Berlin, and Warsaw. He studied Fine Arts in Hamburg and in the studio of Mirosław Bałka at the Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in Warsaw. In 2022 he will graduate and receive his Masters’ Degree in the class of Andreas Slominski at the University of Fine Arts (HFBK) in Hamburg.