Ramon Keimig on unearthing an entirely new visual language that’s “attuned to the raw and cosmic”

Since we last caught up with the visual artist Ramon Keimig in 2020 a lot has changed. In fact, the illustrator tells us: “I believe my practice has fundamentally transformed.” His work, previously bursting with bright colour, now takes to more natural hues. Hard graphic outlines have become softly etched scratches. Ethereal or perhaps more botanical in form, these organic shapes and textures have become a focus of Ramon’s printmaking, his practice now “navigating a space between fine art and illustration”.

A big factor in this shift in the artist’s individual style is his move from the city to the countryside. Finding a new base near the Black Forest in the northwest of Germany, Ramon has found a new rhythm for himself, “shaped by long walks in nature and introspective drawing sessions”, he says. “As a result, my work has become more attuned to the raw and cosmic, weaving together emotional intensity and subconscious impulses through more automatic drawing.” As opposed to seeing his practice as a “separate, isolated act”, from its setting, Ramon sees it as something that is “embedded in the ordinary”, taking its tips from the everyday. “I think I’m super sensitive to my direct surroundings”, he says. “No wonder my work has changed.”

Over the last five years, alongside exhibitions and illustrating for editorial projects and magazines like Bloomberg or Die Ziet, Ramon has spent a large part of his time delving into the world of music; marking numerous album covers, cassette covers, and concert posters with his work. In that time, he also turned his attention to a masters degree in fine art with a focus on printmaking and drawing at the Institute of Art, Gender and Nature (IAGN) in Basel, building up “an extensive archive of drawings and prints and developing my style to something very personal and organic”, he says.

Although his illustrations may have taken a dive into the natural and organic, Ramon’s process is still a mix of the analogue and digital. Whilst a lot of his drawings start on paper with ink and pencil, the artist goes through the process of printing them out on “cheap recycled, coloured or found paper”, to then scan each impression back in to “explore further digital manipulations” on screen. Some of his lines also begin digitally with “custom brushes and recorded actions” he’s stored up in photoshop to manipulate or expand his drawings.

When it comes to taking things into print, Ramon likes to combine his digital lines with analog marks to create contrast, making use of processes like Risograph for a grainy effect, screen printing onto raw fabric for canvas-based works and even printing with broken machines, he says “like a printer I found on the street with sticky ink”. All are ways to translate all the intricate patterns of his daily “automatic” drawings into the most unique textures, the details of which are influenced by a range of biological references such as “fossil-like structures, nervous system anatomy, plant-like forms as well as microscopic or macroscopic views of natural processes like decay and metamorphosis”, he explains.

Whilst “almost everything has changed”, Ramon says that much of his current work “still builds on my earlier work methods”. Certainly experimental and transcendent of strict categories, the artist’s practice is always focused on the constant development of an individual visual language in every form: “from surreal, fantastical and architectural computer drawings, fictive exhibition spaces and artworks, autobiographical portraits to introspective, to cosmic plant, animal, and insect motifs.” In sum, the line he’s following through all his drawings is a continuous appetite for discovery.