Peter Köhler

Peter Köhler creates ink and acrylic paintings that are at once dazzling, beautiful and disturbing, inspired by folklore, esotericism, the occult, and Romantic and Gothic literary sources. In Köhler’s works different pictorial conventions are mixed in a jumble of details that sometimes interlink. There is something hallucinatory about his richly detailed works. There is an abundance to discover in Köhler’s vivid scenes, where the order of reality no longer applies. His works are often sombre and Gothic, depicting nightly scenes and deadly dance macabres, but in his work, there is also new life springing from the decomposing: the rotting becomes lush new life, and bright colours erupt into view from the dark.

Peter Köhler was born 1971 in Stockholm, Sweden, where he lives and works. He graduated from the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. His selected solo exhibitions include Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Stockholm, Sweden (2021, 2020, 2017, 2015, 2012, 2010, 2009), Teckningsmuseet, Laholm, Sweden (2020), Chart Art Fair, Galleri Magnus Karlsson, Copenhagen, Denmark (2018), Gerlesborgsskolan Bohuslän, Sweden (2014), Tobey Fine Arts, New York, US (2006, 2003), Galleri 54, Gothenburg, Sweden (2005), Botkyrka konsthall, Sweden (2004), and Brändström & Stene, Stockholm (2002).

In recent years he has made illustrations and cover art for several books by the American plant folklorist and author Corinne Boyer. He has completed several public commissions and is represented in private and public collections in Sweden, Europe and the US.