Sebastian Gumpinger’s artistic practice is centered on the line – not as a fixed contour, but
as a living element that structures space, reflects light, and challenges perception. With
an angle grinder, he draws directly into polished steel and copper sheets, leaving gestural,
rhythmic incisions that transform two-millimeter plates into seemingly sculptural objects.
Light is not secondary, but a constitutive medium: as the viewer moves, the surface oscil-
lates, shifting between flatness and depth, stillness and flux.
This approach is deeply informed by his early years in Morocco, where the intensity and
clarity of light left a lasting imprint. A formative moment occurred in a French preschool in
Agadir: too young to read, he copied letters from the blackboard purely for their form, de-
tached from meaning. This encounter with line as abstraction continues to resonate. Later,
growing up in Germany, he immersed himself in graffiti and hip-hop culture, where rhythm,
gesture, and immediacy shaped his visual language.
Placed within an art-historical framework, Gumpinger’s work recalls the graphic insistence
of Jonathan Lasker or the calligraphic flows of Brice Marden, yet it occupies its own posi-
tion. His works are not constructed systems or stylistic borrowings – they are direct, un-
compromising, and precise. In their clarity and intensity, they establish a visual language
that has not previously existed in this form.
His “Steel Paintings” stand at the intersection of drawing, sculpture, and installation. They
transform industrial material into meditative yet dynamic fields, demanding the viewer’s
presence. Neither static image nor object, they are unique surfaces that live in time,
space, and light.