Born in Stuttgart in July 1962, she spent her childhood as an only child with her parents and grandparents in Stuttgart, and later in Crailsheim.

She spent her school years there, and it was love that eventually drew her to Satteldorf, where she remains rooted today.

Work experience:

Since 2008, Elke has been a freelance artist. She manages and organizes international art seminars and painting courses.

Educational background:

1981: Abitur with a specialization in Fine Arts.

Since 1995, she has studied at the Academy of Arts in Schwäbisch Hall (drawing and nude painting, art history, printmaking, woodcut, acrylic painting and mixed media), and has taken numerous courses with renowned artists and academies.

Signatory member of the National Watercolor Society (USA).

Member of the IMWA.

Member of Women in Watercolor.

Her objects – people, flowers and urban objects – are depicted with love and joy, but never in a romantic or socially critical way. It is about the real, not realism. The colour is released from the object, the form changes and, as a result, the expression remains.

The artist sees her task in depicting what develops in the dialogue of the moment and the object to be depicted: the beauty of the atmosphere and the moment.

The artist herself on her works:

'How did flowers come into my focus and my work?' This question is actually quite easy to answer. They have always been there, because flowers are the smile of creation and therefore omnipresent. Showing these smiles and the beauty of the moment is an unbridled joy in my life.

Why do my paintings look the way they do?

It has a lot to do with me as a person and also with my culture and upbringing. I grew up with a lot of freedom, with room for independence. Tolerance, freedom, love and the pursuit of happiness are important elements in my life and also in my work.

My temperament and my inner self permeate or explode in the paintings. The interior turned outwards is part of the German artistic style, the home of expressionism, with which I feel very connected.

Watercolour, like expressionism, is my artistic homeland. It is a tool on the one hand and a passion on the other.

Specifically, I am not interested in botanical reality, but in the impression a flower leaves on me. This impression acts on me and my expression, my painting, emerges.

Watercolour as a technique offers the greatest variety of expression. A modern, expressive watercolour needs everything. It needs the concrete and the diffuse, the strong and the calm, the dominant and the modest, the light and the dark, a bit of everything, like yin and yang. The secret lies in balance.

Learn more about Elke Memmler