Thorsten Brinkmann

In his works, the German artist Thorsten Brinkmann (born 1971) combines curious items and found objects in an unforeseen, imaginative manner. 

He calls himself a “Serialsammler”, a collector, not of something in particular, but rather of anything that he might find interesting, from bric-a-brac to furniture, lamps, blankets, buckets and an endless list of miscellaneous things. Normally, things are defined by their purposive aspect, but in this context, they are employed for an exclusively aesthetic effect. He arranges the secondhand objects into elegant still lifes that mine painting traditions like Dutch Vanitas. Here a tablecloth, an old coat, a knife, a kind of a box and other objects are given a fresh life through playful recombination and reframing.