German painter Paula Kamps has died at age 36, as announced by her Parisian gallery Sans titre. Trained at the Free University of Berlin and the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf under painters Tomma Abts and Elizabeth Peyton, Kamps was awarded the title of Meisterschülerin in 2016. She lived and worked in Chicago, developing a distinctive practice that blended watercolor and drawing, exploring memory, fragmentation, and chromatic intensity. Her works occupied a space between figuration and abstraction, featuring blurred figures and enigmatic symbolism. Her exhibition career spanned Europe, Asia, and the United States, with recent solo shows at Galerie Christine Mayer in 2026 and M. LeBlanc in Chicago.
Kamps' death marks the loss of one of the most original voices of young contemporary European painting. Her unique approach—suspended between presence and absence, recognizability and ambiguity—had earned her critical acclaim and a growing international following. The art world loses an artist who consistently reflected on memory, identity, and human connection through a deeply personal visual language, making her passing a significant moment for contemporary painting.