Born in 1974 in Frechen, Germany, Sebastian Hammwöhner lives and works in Berlin.  He studied at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe from 1995-2001. His work has been featured in international venues such as the CAPC Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux, Deichtorhallen/Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, CCA Andratx, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and the 4th Berlin Biennale.

Hammwöhner’s multifaceted work includes site-specific installations, pastel drawings and sculptures. He utilizes appropriation with the forensic methods of cultural anthropology and the contextual chess games of contemporary art. A photographic image of archaic textiles from the Americas or Middle East reproduced through a virtual

interface, resulting in a pastel drawing, is at once a representation of the utilitarian object and the illusion of such. Floating in a pitch-black monochromatic field the colors retain their vibrancy while faded in some spots. The patterns accumulated by the interlacing weaves merge and separate into forms. Hand-in-hand with his two-dimensional works the square cut wooden posts are ritualistically hand wrapped with geometric precision in some parts, less so in others, depending on the thickness, texture, and color of the wool he uses. Haptic counterpoints bound in stock colors of yarn they act as three-dimensional echoes of the carpet drawings. With systematic logic and interdisciplinary methodology Hammwöhner contemporizes the archaic in the 21st century.