Peter Diem - Couple in love.

“Yellow, red and bang” is the apt phrase of American journalist Charles Giuliano: Peter Diem makes vibrant colors collide – a look at his biography shows us that, simultaneously, entire worlds are colliding. Peter Diem was born in Coburg in 1945, the son of a Dutch forced laborer and his German wife. Due to this unusual family structure, he was confronted as a boy with the post-war situation in the Netherlands and Germany. A confrontation that ultimately became a source of inspiration. He grew up in Amsterdam, where he pursued a graphic design education. Naturally, he could not escape the Dutch Masters there: he regarded painters like Rembrandt and Van Gogh as his great role models, but also as rivals. Diem’s ‘love-hate’ relationship with the Old Masters was balanced when, in the late 1950s, he came into contact with the art of the international COBRA group. The young artist was wildly enthusiastic about this wild, colorful ‘children’s art’. You don’t have to paint like Rembrandt to be a master! Diem was captivated by the vibrant explosiveness of COBRA. inspires and makes color his primary means of expression. After living in Switzerland for a while, Diem chose the United States as his home base in the late 1960s. The graphic design company he started there was a success, and he also managed to gain some fame with his lithographs. It was not until the early 1990s that he decided to return to his homeland: “After all, I am Dutch, and I have always considered myself a Dutch artist.” In Amsterdam, Peter Diem enjoys the fusion of life and artistic work. Located in the north of the city is the studio where the artist, with inexhaustible enthusiasm, smothers himself and his canvases with paint. His work is on permanent display at the Red Cross Hospital in Beverwijk, and Novel Amsterdam possesses an extensive collection of paintings, prints, and sculptures. He has also designed various works for Greenpeace. Exhibitions and 'Action Painting' have taken place in Cologne, New York, Japan, Brazil, and during the International Film Festival and the opening of television channel MTV in Moscow, among other locations. The world-famous “Flying Cows” became a trademark of Diem’s work. But he refuses to be pigeonholed: he paints in an excessively expressionistic style, finds harmony tedious, and his handling of form and color seems boundless. Colorful cows appear, flying over bizarre landscapes, and exotic birds make their presence known loudly. Alienating portraits and erotic scenes pique the viewers' curiosity. In his more recent works, the artist moves increasingly more beyond the boundaries of space and time. His lively personality, creativity, and pronounced sense of humor combine with boundless ambition. He captures creation in the palm of his hand and lets it flow through his fingertips onto the canvas. He travels light-years through the universe and shows us bizarre images of his universe: cars race along interstellar highways while fashion shows take place amidst the debris of the 'Big Bang'. In addition to these 'Spatial' themes, Peter Diem is primarily inspired by matter in his immediate surroundings and the artistic expressions he encountered during his many travels within and outside Europe, such as Peruvian and African primitive art. Diem is currently also working on a 'city project': two 17th-century coach houses, situated behind the monumental façade of his studio, are being restored in collaboration with a number of experts. Through the use of loam, the oldest building material in the world, the space will be given a unique style and distinctive character. The doors will soon open for exhibitions, lectures, concerts, and various other cultural events. events, One space will be permanently furnished with works from the artist's American period