THORSTEN BRINKMANN born 1971, Herne, Germany studied at the art schools in Kassel and Hamburg in the classes of Floris M. Neusüss and Bernhard J. Blume, before graduating as a Masters student of Franz E. Walther. After receiving awards such as the scholarship of the city of Hamburg (2006), he was honoured with the Kunstpreis Finkenwerder and received an artist residency in the Warhol Museum Pittsburgh in 2012.

With his atmosphere-filled narratives, Thorsten Brinkmann effortlessly moves between various genres, playing with images that have been carved into our collective memory. The artist creates his works from a growing collection of found objects: discarded household objects, secondhand clothing, leftover things from middle-class domestic culture, and all types of bulky refuse. The humorous self-portraits, the still lifes and striking draperies he has photographed as well as his paradisical landscapes allude to compositions by old masters from the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries. His works are represented in renowned collections, such as the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, the Fotomuseum Winterthur, the Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven and the Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg.

The artist has been featured in numerous group exhibitions in Germany and abroad, for instance in the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/M (2016), Villa Mondiran, NL (2014), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2016, 2012), a show curated by Christian Lacroix at Abbaye de Montmajour in Arles, France (2013) or at The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh (2012); and most recently in solo exhibitions such as at Gemeente Museum Helmond (2016/17), Rice Univ. Art Gallery, Houston/TX (2016), Museum Kranenburg, Bergen (2015), Palais für aktuelle Kunst, Glückstadt (2014), Flanders Field Museum in Ypres, Belgium (2014), Museo Nacional de San Carlos, Mexico City (2012), Kunsthalle zu Kiel (2011), Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (2010) etc.. At least in 2013 Brinkmann has transformed the interior of a 1.900-square-foot house in Pittsburgh into a permanent mixed-media installation.