Andrea Bender

Andrea Bender, who was born in 1972 in Schotten, Hessen, already knew when she was at school that she was destined to be an artist. Immediately after graduating from high school, in 1993 she began studying painting at the State University of Fine Arts / Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main with none other than Jörg Immendorff. After switching to Alf Schuler’s class at the Kassel Art Academy in 1994, Andrea Bender enrolled at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1996. In addition to Jörg Immendorff, Dieter Krieg is her teacher here. In 1998, Krieg, who is one of the main representatives of the New Figuration, accepted the highly talented Andrea Bender as a master class student. In 1999 the young artist completed her training with an academy letter from the Düsseldorf Art Academy.

In the new millennium, Andrea Bender made a name for herself with her painting. Numerous grants accompanied the first years of his career, including a travel grant from the Düsseldorfer Kunstverein to Venice in 1999, the studio grant from the city of Duisburg the following year, and the Herrenhaus Edenkoben grant in 2001. In 2004/05, a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) brought Andrea Bender to Vienna.

Andrea Bender works figuratively in her expressive paintings and graphics. Pompous architecture with subtle disruptive elements and idiosyncratic figures that have sprung from a grotesque fairy tale exude wit and sharp irony. A painterly moving brushstroke and a subtle handling of the coloring give these works their own language.
Numerous national and international solo exhibitions, including in New York and Amsterdam (both 2010), make the artist’s works known to a wider audience. Andrea Bender, who was awarded the art prize of the Röher Parkklinik in 2005 and the Dormagen-Guffanti grant from the city of Cologne in 2008, lives and works in Düsseldorf and Duisburg.