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After teaching many years at university, Beate Gegenwart is now a full-time Maker alongside curating exhibitions for galleries and museums. Originally from Germany, she lives and works between the two countries, the Gower Peninsular near Swansea in the United Kingdom and Frankfurt, Germany. She studied at the University of Wales, Cardiff and the University of the West of England, Bristol, completing two Master degrees.
She has exhibited nationally and internationally and curated numerous exhibitions, touring to North America, France, The Netherlands and Germany. Her work is held in both national and international collections.
As well as the pieces featured below, you can discover more of her work by visiting her gallery of notable projects and previous commissions above.
And if you would like to discover more about the commissioning process or commission something from Beate Gegenwart, please enquire below and Beate will contact you for a no obligation conversation.
Photo Credits: Dewi Tannant Lloyd
Commission a bespoke piece from Beate Gegenwart
Create a collectable of the future - a living heirloom that will be passed down through generations, to be treasured forever - your own personalised work of art created to your exact specifications.
We truly believe that nothing compares to having your own personalised work of art created to your exact specifications. Any item you buy will be unlike any other, because it hasn’t been machine-made on a factory floor, but lovingly crafted over many hours and shaped by a single pair of hands. Furthermore, it will have the added, enduring value of being able to shape your own personal story through its making.
More than an exquisite work of art
Researched, designed and made with a pride and passion for her craft, each commission will draw on Beate’s unequalled skill and innovation to create a piece grounded in the language of craft to tell a story of belonging.
And in commissioning a bespoke piece from Beate Gegenwart, you will also be engaging in a collaborative process, beginning a relationship with her that adds an extra dimension to the final piece.
If you would like to discuss an idea or project with Beate Gegenwart, please complete the form below and Beate will contact you for a no obligation conversation.
I discovered that sometimes the ‘in-between lines’ is as important as the line itself’
(On Line, Catherine de Zegher, p. 118)
My work is centred on the exploration of identity, belonging, and the intangible spaces between people and places. Working predominantly with metal— steel and vitreous enamel, etched copper and brass—and incorporating works on paper, I create pieces that reflect on borders, crossings, rhythms and water, always water. Language too occupies an important part in my work, the idea of the ‘translator’ and the use of the ‘mother tongue’ as orientation, home and dwelling rather than physical location.
I grew up along the big European rivers of Rhine and Main and now live adjacent to the sea, witnessing the powerful to and fro of the Atlantic every day, mirroring my experience of movement and displacement. These huge, formidable masses of water increasingly have a profound influence on myself and my work.
My chosen materials of metal and vitreous enamel offer me the structural stability (metal) to work large, as well as the subtle fragility of glass to reflect my felt experience as an immigrant. I am passionate about this under-represented material of enamel, particularly at scale. It is fragile yet hard and permanent, opaque, transparent in places, yet may appear soft, glowing. It allows me to work in subtle layers, developed by drawing, incising, abrading, revealing the underneath. Firing the pieces several times and submitting metal and glass to the fire, an alchemy happens, the unexpected, the element of chance.
3D vessels in steel and copper are a fascinating new departure for me. It enables the freedom to be playful with ideas and to make pieces with the most intricate drawings. It allows me to take the work off the wall, to create pieces in space, which may be used, moved or held.
