Biography

Clemens Luhmann was born in Germany in 1965, the son of sociologist Niklas Luhmann, and his wife, goldsmith Ursula Luhmann. He grew up in Bielefeld, a college town in northwestern Germany.

 

Luhmann has traveled to Latin America since 1987, beginning an ongoing interest and fascination with Latin countries and culture. After his early travels, he studied medicine and went on to work as a general surgeon in the 1990s. At the end of the millennium, he moved to Guatemala, where he now resides with his family at Lake Atitlan.

 

Luhmann has been painting since childhood, guided by his mother's teaching on the one hand, and his father's esthetic inspiration on the other. He later went on to study with US-American artist Guido Bondioli.

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Luhmann is also editor of the book 'Poesie als Passion' (Poetry as a Passion), a collection of poems that has been published in Germany at Fink Verlag in 2012 . 

 

The Spanish filmmaker Jay Zacc has made two documentaries about Luhmann and his work in the years 2015/16, the 52-min film 'From Doctor to Painter' and the 28-min film 'Am Anfang war der Klecks' (In the Beginning was the Splash) in German language.

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Since 2012 Luhmann has shown his work in various single exhibition in Central America and Germany.

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2012    Antigua, Guatemala: Random Intent

2013    Granada, Nicaragua: Agitation

2014    Granada, Nicaragua: Words out of Splashes

2014    Antigua, Guatemala: Airlines – visibles and invisibles

2015    Quetzaltenango, Guatemala: Mocean

2015    Panajachel, Guatemala: Retrospective 2008-2015

2016    Quetzaltenango, Guatemala: Encounter

2016    Panajachel, Guatemala: Encounter

2016    Regensburg, Germany: Migration

2016    Stuttgart, Germany: Random Intent

2017    German Embassy, Guatemala: In the Beginning was the Splash

2020    German Embassy, Guatemala: Caravan

2022    Aachen, Germany: Without Title

2022    Antigua, Guatemala: Retrospective 2012-2022

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