Paula Kamps, a German painter known for her tender, softly hued works exploring memory and fleetingness, has died at age 36. Her Paris gallery, Sans Titre, confirmed her death on Tuesday but did not disclose a cause. Kamps used thin washes of watercolor and ink to create dreamlike portraits, landscapes, and still lifes in which figures and plants appear to blur or fade. She studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under Lucy McKenzie, Tomma Abts, and Elizabeth Peyton, and later debuted solo at M. LeBlanc Gallery in Chicago in 2021. She also showed with David Zwirner’s Platform, Mou Projects in Hong Kong, and Galerie Christine Mayer in Zurich, which held a solo exhibition earlier this year.
Kamps’s death at such a young age marks the loss of a distinctive emerging voice in contemporary painting. Her work, admired by artists like André Butzer, who called her ink flows “stains,” resonated with audiences in Europe and the US for its poetic meditation on memory and impermanence. Her career was on an upward trajectory, with gallery representation in multiple cities and growing institutional attention. Her passing leaves a gap in the conversation around intimate, process-driven painting that blurs the line between figuration and abstraction.