Martin Wehmer, born in 1966 in Hettingen, Germany, lives and works in Beijing. He has held lectureships at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), the China Academy of Art (CAA) and the Berlin University of the Arts (BUA), and the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts (TAFA). He was the recipient of Stipendium iaab, International Exchange Basel in Beijing in 2008, Stipendium iaab, International Exchange Basel in Edinburgh in 2003, and the German Art Prize of Volks & Raiffeisen in 1996.
Wehmer is by almost any definition a painter—and one who embraces the traditional craft of his medium by way of extraordinary skill on the one hand, and by his concise and intellectual investigations, pursued with equally extraordinary diligence, on the other. His work originates from the annals of art history, specifically concerning itself with material, picture, plane, and space - issues distinctive to painting. Wehmer is a manufacturer of an artifice that relies on a socially relevant commodity that stays connected through his personal desire and his predisposition. His intention is not to dematerialize nor contextualize the art to advance how we define art-making today, but he consciously embraces the restrictive property of painting. The painting therefore dictates the artistic activity that has produced it and becomes a fetishistic object of desire.
Wehmer's works are in the collections of many important institutions, including UBS Hong Kong, Cologne and Zurich, Kunstkredit Basel, Kultusministerium Kanton Basel, and many others.