"After studying fine art at the HbK Kassel, Axel Plöger lived as an artist in Lima, Peru, for six years. He has now been working as a freelance painter with a studio in Detmold again for more than twenty years. Improvisation and motivation are two fundamental concepts in Plöger's painting. In the current series of works "Dances", the painter enters the picture in "sessions" separated by time, creating an evolving line, structure or surface, individual stages of the process that are completed when he steps back from the canvas. No corrections, no improvements, the next act of painting is again a temporally separated setting. The works created in this way over long periods of time show layers of lines and structures. Time and colour combine to create complex pictorial spaces. Bright colours and diverse structures convey a feeling of joy or powerful vitality, while the muted palette in some works suggests a more introspective or melancholic mood.

When asked about the expressiveness of his works, the painter says:
"My paintings are what happens between me and the canvas."

Paul Schmidt, 2023