Midcity, Los Angeles
Hans-Peter Thomas
Hans-Peter Thomas
Paul SotoOffice Paul Soto is proud to present a solo exhibition of new paintings by the German artist Hans-Peter Thomas. This is the artist's first exhibition with the gallery, and marks the first solo exhibition of the artist's work in the United States since 2004. Thomas’ intimately scaled paintings on view in the office are comprised of bucolic scenes of nature. Their sweetness and tenderness are characterized by an immediacy and directness animated through his mark-making. At times impressionistic and at others graffito, Thomas’ paintings radiate glyph like, carrying primordial, deeply felt emotive qualities. They embody a sense of innocence that is both contradicted by and amplified by his panoply of references, speaking to the complexity of the human condition and of lived life. Hans-Peter Thomas was born in 1968 in Bonn, Germany. Thomas studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich and completed his degree in 1997. He moved soon afterwards to Berlin where he exhibited works alongside his peers like artists Thilo Heinzmann and André Butzer. Thomas moved to Los Angeles in 2009 to attend the MAK Center Residency, and he resided in the city from 2009 to 2021, where he worked as an artist and also as a musician under the moniker "Bara." Thomas now lives and works outside of Berlin. His works have been exhibited widely in Germany and Austria, including at his longtime gallery, Bernd Kugler Gallery, Innesbruck, where he currently has an exhibition on view entitled Seven Animals; and he exhibited works at several storied galleries in Los Angeles including Daniel Hug Gallery and Patrick Painter Gallery.