Karin Kneffel

(German, born 1957)

Karin Kneffel is a contemporary German painter working in a Photorealist style. In her disorienting, hyper-realistic paintings, Kneffel combines everyday scenes with historical, narrative, or hallucinogenic undertones. She has explained her work as a mining of the established content of the legacy of painting to create something completely new and fresh. Born on January 15, 1957 in Marl, Germany, the artist went on to enroll at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where she studied with Gerhardt Richter, whose painting virtuosity and attitude have had a lasting influence on her work and her nonhierarchical stance towards art-making. Kneffel’s work has been exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery and Barbara Mathes Gallery in New York. She lives and works in Düsseldorf, Germany.