Artist from Germany
Utaellamarie Peter is a German artist, who uses painting as a means to creatively interact with her surroundings and find her place in a complex world. For her, painting is not only an expression, but also a source of joy when ideas take shape during the creative process.
After many years of working as a chemical engineer, she discovered her true calling in painting.
Her works are mainly made on canvas, using mainly acrylic and oil colors, and range between figurative, abstract and surrealist styles.
ARTWORK STATEMENT
“I came to painting relatively late, after completing my training as a chemical engineer and working for many years in environmental protection. This makes the relationship I have built with painting all the more intense and stable. I have completed various training courses at independent art schools in Trier, Mainz, and Wiesbaden, and continue to attend them.
Today, I work as a freelance artist, exhibit my works near and far, and am represented in various regional and national art associations.
Perceiving and reflecting—in a complex world flooded with news and images, painting offers me a space for creative engagement and positioning. A space that is often filled with humor, because “without humor, everything is nothing!”
These excursions into the here and now are transformed into imaginative, mostly figurative acrylic or oil paintings that often deal with many facets of being: surprising, absurd, bizarre.”
CRITICAL REVIEW: The reference to the iconic “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich is not a mere quotation, but a critical reactivation: the contemporary figure, accompanied by an electric scooter, introduces a tension between contemplation and acceleration, between nature and technology, between interiority and the consumption of landscape.
This visual shift becomes a metaphor for our time. The horizon is no longer only a Romantic symbol of the infinite, but a space of choice: to dominate, to traverse, or to pause. Within the ambiguity of this gesture emerges a reflection on resilience as the ability to stop, redefine one’s gaze, and transform vulnerability into awareness.
In the context of Matera, a city that has regenerated its own identity, the work resonates with the theme of renewal, inviting viewers to move beyond visible boundaries and to recognize the inner horizon as the true space of rebirth. – Dr. Carmela Loiacono, Art Curator
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INTERVIEW with Utaellamarie Peter
Carmela Loiacono talks with Utaellamarie Peter who took part in the International Art Exhibition NEW HORIZONS – Authenticity, Resilience and Renewal in Matera, at Casa Cava, from March 21 to 27, 2026.
Carmela Loiacono – Your work “Rolling up that hill” reinterprets the iconic image of Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, introducing a contemporary element such as the electric scooter. How did this combination of Romantic contemplation and technological acceleration come about, and what reflection on resilience did you aim to convey through it?
Utaellamarie Peter – Everything – fast – with no effort: this image symbolises human entitlement in an age of acceleration and self-optimisation. It highlights the contradiction between the search for meaning, self-reflection and tranquillity on the one hand, and constant acceleration, supposed improvement and the inevitable superficiality that results from it on the other. The e-scooter represents technology that spares us effort whilst increasing our speed. The search for meaning and inner peace whilst gazing over the mountain peaks cannot – absurdly enough – be achieved quickly enough.
Carmela Loiacono – In your work, there is often a delicate balance between humor and introspection. How does your background in chemical engineering and environmental protection influence the way you observe landscapes, humans, and technology in your paintings?
Utaellamarie Peter – I am a rational person with a scientific mindset. My professional engagement with the environment, ecology and climate change has not created my awareness of the consequences of humanity’s appropriation of planet Earth, but has reinforced it without disregarding my own contribution.. I like to translate my close observation of current events – of human greed for faster, higher, further, regardless of the cost – into my figurative, surreal paintings in best case combined with humour and my own characteristic ironic perspective – anything else would be too devastating.
Carmela Loiacono — The horizon in “Rolling up that hill” becomes a metaphor for possibility, choice, and renewal. How do you interpret the concept of personal and creative rebirth, and how do you think viewers can reconnect with their own inner perspective when facing your work?
Utaellamarie Peter – The only hope that, in my view, is expressed in the painting is that the e-scooter is leaning unused against the rock. Perhaps it will remain there permanently? Perhaps, as he looks out over the mountains, the hiker is reminded of Seneca’s ‘Per aspera ad astra’? That would be fine.
Carmela Loiacono – Looking to the future, what artistic projects or explorations interest you most? Are there new elements, themes, or materials you would like to integrate into your upcoming works?
Utaellamarie Peter – I have many thematic ideas that follow the path of surrealism. A figurative Surrealism that often takes a critical look at reality without losing the sense of humor – hard enough these days. That is my current focus. Other directions, such as the abstractions in the “bunt” series or the serie “Hybride”, are in the back of my mind and will surely resurface when the opportunity arises.
