Born in Erkelenz in 1973, Michael Bauer has already made a name for himself in the contemporary art scene.
Michael Bauer studied at the Brunswick University of Fine Arts under Hartmut Neumann and Walter Dahn, on his part a big name of the "Junge Wilde" (Wild Young Artists), the movement in new figuration of the 1980s. This training shaped the young artist and he would reveal great versatility between atmospheric abstraction and surreal pictorial worlds in his paintings, graphics and mixed-media sculptures. Michael Bauer's works often resonate fantastic, bizarre sounds - and this is certainly to be understood literally, because music greatly influenced Bauer's artistic development, in particular the subtle internal dynamics of his compositions: the artist is also active as musician, together with Florian Grass and Robert Kraiss he is a member of the "Ylmaz House Band".
In his surrealist works Michael Bauer plays with the observer's memories of images. As a "teaser", as he calls the fragments of reality in his works, he recurrently uses familiar things, objects of everyday life, or even body parts, especially male genitals. Detached from their proper context, these visual elements set the mind of the observer in motion. Bauer seeks to cause confusion with the familiar element in an unfamiliar context.
Everyday objects are also found in Michael Bauer's three-dimensional works. Again, he employs familiar elements of daily life taken from their context, such as pens or nicotine patches, which, combined with traditional sculptural materials, become disconcerting.
Michael Bauer has been an emergent figures in the art world for several years. His art is in demand internationally: Works by Michael Bauer are on display at the Saatchi Gallery in London; the artist has also had solo exhibitions in cities such as Geneva, London, Zurich, New York and Turin.
Michael Bauer lives and works in Cologne.