Tim Berresheim (born 1975 in Heinsberg, Germany) is one of the main protagonists of contemporary, computer-generated art. Living and working in Aachen, Germany, Berresheim is an artist and musician as well as founder of the record label and project space New Amerika.

Berresheim art practice encompasses traditional panel paintings with computer-generated imagery along with installations, sculpture and frequent collaborations. In the pictures, produced photographly, or as screen prints or computer prints, images are situated in three-dimensional, illusionistic space.  In earlier works, these were made from elaborate sets he constructed in his studio and more recently made with state of the art CGI and DGI technology. They are plausible, as Berresheim refers to them, in that physical and natural laws are followed, obeyed and underpin the representations of the constructed fantastical imagery. 

Berresheim’s work is a constant interplay between the handmade and the digital, the traditional and the very contemporary.  He uses the vocabulary of painting, particularly line and brush work, but rather than executing them in oil or acrylic by hand on his panels, the lines or “brushstrokes” are made up of precisely rendered 3-D objects, hair or granular molecules for instance. In other instances, idealized figures are covered in intricate tattoos, which are painstakingly hand drawn on paper in the studio and then digitized. The digital “skin” is then wrapped around the figures using sophisticated 3-D modeling techniques with the utmost visual and perspectival accuracy.

Berresheim calls himself a “maker of images” and willfully ignores the traditional genres of fine art practice, blurring the lines between various media, making everything from all encompassing installations and architectural projects to unique art works and larger editions. His collaborations include his project space, record label and publishing house New Amerika and his latest band Die Wait Watchers to collaborations with other artists like Jonathan Messe and consumer brands like Carhartt and Mercedes Benz / Maybach. Berresheim’s 2D works follow an arc of German image making using technological sources from his mentor Albert Oehlen’s Computer Paintings of the 1990s to Sigmar Polke’s Machine Paintings of the early 2000s, while defining his own aesthetic and breaking new ground in his use of sophisticated, state of the art CGI and DGI technologies.

Based in Aachen, Berresheim (b. 1975) studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and recent solo exhibitions include a retrospective, 2003-2015, at the Ludwig Forum for Contemporary Art, Aachen (2015/ 2016) (cat.), the Düsseldorf Kunstverein (2013) (cat.), Kunstmuseum Celle, (2011) and Kunsthalle Gießen, Gießen, Germany (2011) Other recent exhibitions include Better than De Kooning at Villa Merkel Esslingen, Germany (cat.), “In the Apartment” organized by Albert Oehlen, in collaboration with Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen at the Gebert Foundation, Rapperswil, Switzerland (cat.), and a two person show with Matthias Schauffler at Corbett vs Dempsey, Chicago.  His most recent catalogs 2003- 2015 and Auge & Welt (2015) both published by Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne are available.