Torben Giehler was born in Bad Oeynhausen, a small spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, in 1973. As a young artist he received a scholarship from the "New York Studio Program" in 1997 and went to the U.S.A. He received a diploma from the Boston "School of the Museum of Fine Arts" in 1998 and was awarded the "Fifth Year Certificate" in 1999. Afterwards Torben Giehler settled in New York City, which would remain the center of his life until 2009.
The remarkably characteristic works by Torben Giehler hover between geometric abstraction and figuration. At first his often large-size paintings seem to show mountain landscapes, views onto open fields or architectures. However, they are abstract compositions of geometric and colorful fields. These forms are put into a grid that suggests spatial depth and three-dimensionality.
The aesthetic value of these works call reminiscence of digitally generated spatial constructions, similar to those in computer games. References to other mass media (film, pop music) and to art history can also be observed: In some works Torben Giehler references Paul Cézanne's famous series of paintings with the Mont Sainte-Victoire.
Graphic art also plays a big role in the oeuvre of Torben Giehler. Hand drawings are the at the starting point of his paintings: Giehler makes drawings in colors, takes digital photographs of them, processes them on the computer and eventually composes his large landscapes. High-quality silk-screens in colors are also part of Torben Giehler's oeuvre.
Works by Torben Giehler are in possession of international museums, for instance in the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Dakis Janou Collection in Athens, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Museum of Fine Arts in Los Angeles. Torben Giehler lives and works in Berlin.