In the digital age, where identities are constantly shaped and redefined through virtual interactions, Bernhard Buhmann explores the tension between human and machine, the natural and the artificial.
PARIS-B is delighted to welcome the Austrian artist Bernhard Buhmann for his first solo show in France, entitled Echoes in the Machinery, unveiling his latest paintings.
Through a visual language that oscillates between abstraction and figuration, he questions the deconstruction and recomposition of our representations in a world saturated with images and information.
Educated in sociology before turning to painting, Buhmann adopts an analytical approach to the image. His rigorously constructed canvases, at first glance, appear algorithmically generated, their geometric precision and chromatic gradients evoking the aesthetics of digital interfaces. Yet upon closer inspection, the texture and materiality of the painterly gesture emerge, restoring an organic and human dimension to the medium. In his latest series, Echoes in the Machinery, Buhmann draws inspiration from digital avatars populating social networks—artificial doubles created to represent ourselves in the virtual realm.
As early as 1956, Erving Goffman, in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, described society as a stage where individuals adjust their image according to context and the gaze of others. The digital era has amplified this dynamic: online avatars and profiles are no longer mere social projections but optimized entities, subject to algorithmic logic and the demands of visibility.
Buhmann translates this idea visually by layering colors and forms, creating figures caught in a process of continuous mutation. The exhibition unfolds as a true gallery of portraits, each painting exploring the instability of identity and its ceaseless transformation. His works suggest that individuals cannot be reduced to a single, stable image but are continuously shaped by external forces—whether technological, social, or cultural. This interplay of erasure and reappearance, where identity is never fully defined, directly echoes Deleuze’s concept of becoming: a transitional state in which the self is constantly reinvented.
This notion of an ever-evolving identity resonates with Gilles Deleuze’s thinking in Difference and Repetition (1968), where he conceives identity as a continuous movement—each repetition generating variation. For Deleuze, being is not defined by a fixed essence but by a process of differences and successive transformations, revealing its dynamic nature. This perspective departs from an essentialist view of the individual, instead embracing a fluid conception of identity—one that is constantly forming, dissolving, and reconstituting itself according to new contexts and influences.
While Echoes in the Machinery interrogates the dissolution of the individual within technological and algorithmic flows, Buhmann’s work is far from a purely dystopian statement. Through a vibrant and contrasting palette, he infuses his portraits with an almost playful energy, capturing both the confusion and exhilaration of a world where everything is malleable. This plasticity of identity, rather than signifying a loss, also opens new possibilities—for reinvention, metamorphosis, and the assertion of a constantly evolving subjectivity.
In a world where individuals must continually redefine themselves, Echoes in the Machinery poses a fundamental question: what remains of the human when its representation is ceaselessly filtered, remodeled, and optimized? By transforming painting into a mirror of these contemporary mutations, Buhmann does not merely offer a critique but invites us to embrace instability as a force—an opportunity to rethink our relationship with ourselves and the images that shape us. Confronted with the dizzying mechanics of the digital world, his work ultimately celebrates the capacity of art to capture these transformations and restore their full complexity, between loss and emergence, erasure and revelation.
Catalogue of Works
Bernhard Buhmann was born in 1979 in Bregenz, Austria. Holding a master’s degree in sociology and communications sciences from the University of Vienna, he also studied painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Today, he lives and works in Vienna, where he continues to fuel his work with a constant reflection on the social, political, and technological issues of our time. His work is not only exhibited but also integrated into numerous collections worldwide, from New York to Austria to Dubai, reflecting his international recognition and the impact of his work on the global art scene.