In 1985 Miriam Loellmann was born into a family of artists as the fourth of five siblings in Southern Germany, where she spent her very creative childhood and adolescence. Between 2007 and 2013 she was taught in various disciplines at three different art schools in Stuttgart, Berlin and Lisbon and was working partly as an assistant to the painter couple Heidi Foerster and Detlef Freudig in Stuttgart and Southern France.
At the end of 2013, six month after her graduation at the art academy KHB Weißensee in Berlin, she took the conscious decision to emigrate alone to the tropical Rio de Janeiro to build up her own studio, develop her individual way of working and follow her vocation to make art. Miriam Loellmann had with her a self-bound book about her final exam project 'Copacabana Floor', which served as a starting point to get a foothold in Rio, to align herself, and to find her very own direction. Shortly after her arrival she got a commission for a large mural in a beautiful private villa hotel in Rio, overlooking the Sugar Loaf and Guanabara Bay, which required her to find a studio. That was a 'first decisive step', as she calls it, and since then her studio, her archive, and her artistic career have grown from year to year.
In the next years Miriam Loellmann devotes herself to the making of art with great dedication, patience, sensitivity, and an alert internal awareness.
An extensive body of work has already been created and this is only the beginning, according to the young artist.
"I want to express beauty and clarity through my work and bring the viewer into a state of wonder and presence, beyond mental concepts and thought forms - from thinking to feeling to presence and aliveness."
working style
After long consideration, which form of working style at this moment best suits her personality and development, Miriam Loellmann decided in 2022 to follow her own business model, representing herself and having the responsibility as well as the freedom to make decisions. Doing things herself and teaching herself what she needs at the moment has always been a feature in her development and approach. She is doing this all the time in her creative process in her studio and finds it very fascinating what she can learn and discover after all and besides that the artist enjoys the feeling of autonomy, inner independence and the freedom to express herself in her authentic way.
"Until now I have never been able to see myself in the 'classic model' of an artist represented by galleries that are responsible for the sale and visibility of the artworks while the artist is working in his or her studio.
I kept asking myself to what extent a collaboration and contractual commitment with a gallery would really be good and meaningful for the development of my work, since it would also mean a conscious or unconscious interference in my free and independent working space.
This worried me a lot, because there is nothing more important for me than to keep my free and own space, in which my work can develop undisturbed by foreign influences, in its very own rhythm and pace. That is exactly what it demands of me and I have to respect it."
In 2021, Miriam Loellmann made her first shortfilm about the 'concrete cubes tables' as an autodidact and has been pursuing filmmaking with great fascination and passion ever since. Further films were made in 2022.
"Many of my contacts are in Europe and through the short films I can give them an authentic look into my working process and make them aware of news. I have never liked photos very much to document my work, I find film a much more suitable medium."
In the same year she has transformed her living room into a private exhibition space that invites and encourages international and local audiences to experience her body of work. From time to time she rehangs the works and creates a new interplay between different artworks from her archive, mainly to study her work and process, but also to give access to her work in her own working style, through short films and the possibility of a personal visit.
"I grew up in an environment where art, sculpture, ceramics and music were always an essential and formative part of life. This heritage of quality and richness I want to keep alive and pass on to other people."
"In the end, I love to see what I can create out of myself. That has always motivated and fascinate me the most."