The sisters and Caravaggio

Peter Handel is an artist of international format and was born in 1949 in Anklam, East Germany. 1968 - 1971 studied art and sports, 1977 - 1982 teaching position at the GHS Duisburg, since 1979 freelance artist.

Handels' art developed out of the American photorealism movement of the 1970s, in which the visual reality of everyday life is depicted realistically, without the intervention of emotion. He transforms his nude photographs into hyper-realistic paintings and graphics that play with the mutual conditionality of reality-representing or reality-simulating images and media art.

Through meticulous imitation, Handel thus reflects on the photographic image and its sign-like quality, often on an additional level of reality when there are apparently pasted or hung photographs next to the painted level.

The encounter with the painter Peter Handel reveals an old-masterly skill. In the creative process of the highly realistic nudes, light and shadow, plasticity and form are modulated with several layers as well as by glazing application. Handel slowly approaches his painting and in a subjective way arrives at an independent result.

Fascinated by the possibilities of painting, Handel confronts and discusses different levels of reality - realistic and idealistic - leaving behind the objective level of pure depiction.

Peter Handel's works are represented in numerous exhibitions: 1972 - 1975 Wilhelm Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg; 1979 "Miami international print bienal", USA ; 1981 Museum Portsmouth, England; 2009 C T Gallery, Seoul; 2011 - 2019 OS Galery, Korea, "Sightzeichen" Galerie Klose, Essen

Literature © peterhandel.de