Bernd Gehrig was born in Heidelberg in 1950, lives and works there in seclusion. Grew up in Kirchheim, graduated from a Catholic boarding school, studied sociology, education and psychology in Berlin. Back in Heidelberg he was involved in childcare, painted with children and was fascinated by their “dreamlike” security. Then he made contact again with the child resting in him. He became an ecologically oriented gardener and sold fruit and vegetables at Heidelberg markets. In 1986 he began to paint, "What is important for me is wild growth, weeds! My pictures should be like useful weeds - wild and untamed". Hans Gercke: “Gehrig starts with the most elementary artistic expression there is, drawing, preferably with oil pastel, a material that already contains an affinity for painting. The drawing is rubbed with sunflower oil, dissolved, and a painterly background is formed, which has a natural materiality. Traces brought in like graffiti can be comments, ciphers that appear both subjective and timeless, archaic, prehistoric. "