Loved - Painted - Eaten

Holger Siemann has been keeping sheep on a pasture behind his house since 2010. He feeds them from his hand and talks to them. When it freezes, he hauls water, in spring he shears their coats, in autumn he trims their claws and sometimes he has to bottle-feed a lamb. Holger Siemann recognises his sheep by their faces and of course they have names. Sometimes he is asked how he manages to slaughter them. The answer, he says, is complicated. And that he prefers to paint them instead of writing about them. In memoriam, so to speak. The result can be seen in this exhibition.
Since 2018, the writer has been painting portraits of his sheep in acrylic on canvas, mostly in the typical bust portrait format of an ancestral gallery. Most of them look at the viewer at eye level, not from below as usual. Holger Siemann paints his sheep as he remembers them, not in a photo-documentary way, but with their idiosyncrasies and quirks, with their history and - yes - in their individuality.
And so, over the course of time, a new flock of sheep has emerged: In the form of a branching and very colourful family of pictures that spans several generations of sheep.

Exhibition opening: 29.01.2026, 6 pm
Exhibition period: 30.01. - 05.03.2026

Opening hours:
Monday, Wednesday & Thursday: 8:30 am - 5:30 pm
Tuesday: 8:30 - 18:30
Friday: 8:30 - 14:00