Eric Mangen opens on February 26, 2026 his first solo exhibition in Germany at Galerie Heike Strelow. The new body of work centers on gestural painting. The title Forever Wild Child defines attitude and method. Painting as risk.Painting as action.

Mangen’s approach to abstraction has its roots in graffiti of the late 1990s.
From there, his path leads directly to the tradition of action painting. Movement, body, and material shape the pictorial space.
The canvas becomes the site of action. In art history, this work connects to positions such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline. Here too, the image emerges through execution. Not from a plan. Not from a preliminary drawing.
But from decision in the moment.

Artist, material, and motif meet as equal partners. Composition is followed by destruction, reduction, or reconstruction.
Each layer carries traces of the previous intervention. Nothing remains untouched. Forever Wild Child marks no conclusion.
It defines a state. Painting as a continuous attempt.Painting as a test of courage. Painting as an open process.