{{short description|German artist}} {{Infobox artist | bgcolour = | name = Ivo Ringe | image = Foto des Künstlers Ivo Ringe.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Picture of the artist Ivo Ringe | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date and age |1951|7|5}} | birth_place = Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany | death_date = | death_place = | field = Abstract painting | training = | movement = Concrete art | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = | spouse = Heather Sheehan | website = {{URL|http://ivoringe.com}} }} '''Ivo Ringe''' (born July 5, 1951) is a German artist and curator. His painting has been classified as minimalism, geometric abstraction, concrete art, and hard-edge painting.<ref name="Micchelli">{{cite web |author=Thomas Micchelli |url=http://hyperallergic.com/321899/ivo-ringe-morphic-fields-hionas-gallery |title=A Struggle for Balance |date=2016-09-10 |access-date=2017-01-12}}</ref> Ringe lives and works in Cologne, Germany. He is a member of the Deutscher Künstlerbund (Association of German Artists).<ref>{{cite web |title=Ordentliche Mitglieder |trans-title=Regular members |url=http://www.kuenstlerbund.de/deutsch/mitglieder/ordentliche-mitglieder/ringe-ivo.html?anc=2536&ch=r |access-date=2018-11-21 |website=www.kuenstlerbund.de}}</ref>
==Biography== Ringe was born on July 5, 1951 in Bonn, Germany to Erich and Edith Ringe (née Kleemann). His father was an inventor and his mother, a survivor of the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Ringe grew up in a refugee camp between the villages of Vilich and Schwarzrheindorf, in the district of Bonn.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=Ivo Ringe: Essenz/Essence |date=2026 |publisher=arthellweg verlag |year=2026 |isbn=978-3938966235 |location=Cologne, Germany |pages=133}}</ref>
At age 15, Ringe left home by himself, and traveled to Paris, France where he lived on the streets and learned painting and screen printing. During the late 1960s, Ringe designed and printed posters for local theaters, clubs, and musicians.<ref name=":0" />
From 1972 to 1977, Ringe studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Joseph Beuys and Rolf Sackenheim, from whom he received his master-student degree.<ref name="Micchelli" />
A 1992 fire in his studio in Cologne, Germany, destroyed many of his works.<ref>Fred Sellin: ‘‘Von Malerwerkstatt Ivo Ringes blieb nur noch ein Trümmerhaufen. Beuys-Schüler: Atelier abgebrannt. 30 wertvolle Gemälde waren nicht mehr zu retten‘‘, Kölner Express 22. Januar 1992</ref>
In 2011, Ringe became an adjunct professor with the studio for fine arts ("Atelier für Bildende Kunst") at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn; and from 2014 until 2025, he was the studio’s artistic director..<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ecosign.net/de/aktuelles/meldungen/vor2010/beuys-trilogie.php | title=Beuys Trilogie – Vorträge an der Ecosign |trans-title=Beuys Trilogy – Lectures at the Ecosign |website=Ecosign |date=2008-03-03 |access-date=2020-07-02}}</ref>
Ringe lives and works in Cologne, Germany, and is married to the American artist, Heather Sheehan. At age 32, he began the practice of Transcendental Meditation.<ref name=":0" />
== Artwork == Ringe’s artistic practice includes painting, works on paper, photography, screen printing, etching, and sculptural reliefs.<ref name=":0" />
Throughout his career, Ringe’s work has been influenced by distinct aesthetic and cultural experiences. Criss-crossing Europe alone as a teenager, he followed the path of M. C. Escher to the Alhambra in Spain and was inspired by the powerful sensory effect of its formal and ornamental tessellations. As a young artist, he was influenced by Henri Matisse’s use of straightforward shapes, interaction of colors and forms.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rogge |first=Juliane |title=Ivo Ringe: Essenz/Essence |publisher=arthellweg verlag |year=2026 |isbn=978-3938966235 |location=Cologne, Germany |pages=42}}</ref>
Ringe’s painting has been described as minimal art, akin to Imi Knoebel, and Blinky Palermo who were also Beuys’ students.<ref name="Micchelli" /> Distinct in his work, however, is the balance of the geometry and spatial awareness of nature’s organic proportions with the expressive sensuality of gestural and color field painting. It is through this concentrated tension that the exceptional energy of the works is conveyed. His application of the golden ratio, as well as other mathematical and scientific proportions derived from ancient Sanskrit texts, give structural harmony to his compositions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hamann |first=Kristine |title=Ivo Ringe: Essenz/Essence |publisher=arthellweg verlag |year=2026 |isbn=978-3938966235 |location=Cologne, Germany |pages=10}}</ref>
The characteristic feature of Ringe’s paintings is the precisely balanced colors which are gesturally painted in broad strokes that stretch across the canvas in a net-like manner, creating irregular triangles and quadrangles.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Floss |first=Kirsten |title=Ivo Ringe: Essenz/Essence |publisher=arthellweg verlag |year=2026 |isbn=978-3938966235 |location=Cologne, Germany |publication-date=2026 |pages=91}}</ref>
Art critic Thomas Micchelli, notes that, “Among the more intriguing aspects of Ringe’s work is the thoroughness of its self-analysis: nothing, not even randomness, is done without a reason.”<ref name="Micchelli" />
Ringe’s paintings have been a source of inspiration for other artists. In 2015, Eugen Gomringer, the founder of concrete poetry, wrote a sonnet about Ringe’s work.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.so-eine-art-loft.de/rueckblick.html |title=Rückblick: Vorhergehendes im Zusammenhang mit Folgendem: Eugen Gomringer – Ivo Ringe |trans-title=Review: The previous in connection with the following: Eugen Gomringer – Ivo Ringe |work=Galerie Floss & Schultz |access-date=2020-10-20 |archive-date=2020-11-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201110220940/http://www.so-eine-art-loft.de/rueckblick.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ringe responded to the sonnet with the creation of four screen prints.<ref name=":1" /> In 2020, The vocalist and songwriter, Amy Antin, released a song expressing the impact of Ivo Ringe's works.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Ivo Ringe: Essenz/Essence |publisher=arthellweg verlag |year=2026 |isbn=978-3938966235 |location=Cologne, Germany |publication-date=2026 |pages=23}}</ref>
Since 1976, Ringe’s work has been exhibited internationally in over 250 solo and group shows at galleries and museums. In his work as curator, he further establishes the phenomena of the vibrational aspects of organic structures towards an expansion of the strict geometry in minimalism and concrete art. <ref name=":0" /> Ringe’s artwork is in notable European museum and gallery collections, as well as private and corporate art collections.<ref name=":0" />
== Further reading == * Honnef, Klaus, ''Ivo Ringe'', Katalog zur Ausstellung ''Ivo Ringe'' der Galerie Apicella, 1991 * {{cite book | editor-last = Fischer | editor-first = Gert | title = Ivo Ringe : angel signs, silent fighters | publisher = Rheinlandia-Verlag, Siegburg | year = 1994 | isbn = 978-3925551659}} * {{cite web | url = http://www.museenkoeln.de/artothek/seite.aspx?s=197 | title = ''Ivo Ringe. Malerei.'' | last = Claus | first = Elisabeth| publisher = Artothek Köln| language = de | access-date = January 19, 2012}} * {{cite journal |last1=Kisters |first1=Jürgen |year=2008 |title=''Leuchtende Objekte der Nacht''. Zur Ausstellung ''Malerei des Augenblicks'' im Kunstkontor Köln |journal=Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger |issue=February 11, 2008 |language=de |url=http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1201184465592.shtml |access-date=January 19, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081007201050/http://www.ksta.de/html/artikel/1201184465592.shtml |archive-date=October 7, 2008 |url-status=dead }} * {{cite web| url = http://www.thomas-egelkamp.de/fileadmin/pdf/rapallo2010_katalog_100827_final-egelkamp.pdf| title = Katalog der Ausstellung ''Così parlò Zarathustra''| access-date = January 19, 2012| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20141104162250/http://www.thomas-egelkamp.de/fileadmin/pdf/rapallo2010_katalog_100827_final-egelkamp.pdf| archive-date = November 4, 2014| url-status = dead}} * ''Ivo Ringe: Essenz / Essence,'' arthellweg verlag (Cologne, Germany)'','' 2026. {{ISBN|978-3938966235}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == * [https://www.ivoringe.com/ Ivo Ringe's official website] * [https://artfacts.net/artist/ivo-ringe-1951-de Ivo Ringe] at artfacts.net * {{cite web |author=Ivo Ringe |url=http://www.ivoringe.com/texte-von-ivo-ringe |title=Das Erkennen der Wirklichkeit. Über Schönheit unter dem Aspekt der Nachhaltigkeit |trans-title=The recognition of reality. About beauty under the aspect of sustainability |website=ivoringe.com |date=2014 |access-date=2020-06-30}} * {{DNB portal|114755094}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ringe, Ivo}} Category:Concrete art Category:20th-century German painters Category:20th-century German male artists Category:German male painters Category:21st-century German painters Category:21st-century German male artists Category:German abstract painters Category:German contemporary artists Category:Artists from Bonn Category:1951 births Category:Living people