“The old is always the basis for the new – without the old, the new would never have been created”
Gerhard Kienzle: A New Art Movement Emerging from Graphic Design
For decades, Gerhard Kienzle built his creative career as a graphic designer and art director within prestigious advertising firms in Germany and Switzerland. Throughout that time, his artistic interests continuously evolved, encompassing photography, abstract painting, and an exploration of materials and color. But it was a seemingly mundane object—the aluminum coffee capsule—that would eventually redefine his artistic trajectory. Drawn to their unique surfaces, bold hues, and textural potential, Kienzle saw more than just packaging waste. He envisioned an artistic language embedded in metal, shaped by both use and memory.
What emerged was a singular approach to artmaking that wove upcycling with minimalist aesthetics. Rather than discarding these capsules, Kienzle repurposed them into fascinating, one-of-a-kind art objects. Over the past nine years, this practice has blossomed into a globally distinctive art form, driven by two conceptual anchors: HARMONY and CONTRAST. In transforming recyclable materials into visually sophisticated artworks, he critiques consumerism while offering a poetic reflection on permanence, sustainability, and transformation.
The materials selected for each work are anything but random. Kienzle creates his artworks using used coffee capsules, mounted on rectangular tiles made of marble, slate, porcelain stoneware, wood, or aluminium composite. Arranged in harmonious, modern series, each piece offers both structural elegance and visual weight. These core elements are enhanced with accents of leather, porcelain, ceramic, or stainless steel.
By juxtaposing old and new, industrial and handmade, the artist not only breathes new life into forgotten, antique objects in his contrasting antique series, but also infuses them with a rich, multi-layered cultural and aesthetic resonance.
Art Between Times and Textures in the CONTRAST Series
Kienzle’s artistic process expands beyond conventional formats by incorporating aged, antique objects as platform for his coffee capsule compositions. From cast-iron oven doors and vintage saws to flaking wooden doors and washboards, he revives utilitarian relics as contemporary artworks. This choice introduces a profound temporal tension: the sleek, modern aluminum surfaces of the capsules confront the weathered character of historical tools, producing powerful contrasts that resonate visually and philosophically.
His upcycled artworks function not merely as assemblages of discarded items but as curated dialogues between past and present. For instance, in the piece WOTAN, a galvanized washtub lid becomes the foundation for a striking golden circle, surrounded by vibrantly colored capsules. This fusion evokes ritual and symbolism while addressing themes of reuse and rediscovery. In TJORGEN, the ornate door of a cannon stove is adorned with a curved relief and capsule frame, creating a convergence of industrial craftsmanship and nostalgic ornamentation. Each piece reclaims overlooked materiality, transforming it into something transcendent, without erasing its history.
Kienzle’s guiding ethos—“The old is always the basis for the new”—underscores both his technique and his artistic philosophy. He does not simply recycle; he reimagines. The capsule’s imperfections—dents, perforations, and signs of use—are not concealed but highlighted, reinforcing the aesthetic of reuse and embracing authenticity. The resulting pieces become both critiques and celebrations, addressing waste culture while honoring the tactile narratives etched into each salvaged surface. These works affirm that value lies not in perfection or novelty, but in the stories embedded in material form.
Gerhard Kienzle: Craft in Motion – a Methodical Alchemy
Behind each artwork is an intensive process that combines imagination, technical precision, and resourceful material sourcing. Kienzle’s creations begin with a moment of inspiration, often drawn from everyday observations, architecture, or themes of social discourse. From this initial spark, he moves to detailed sketching and digital drafting, mapping out the interplay of form, color, and texture. He selects from a vast inventory of over 3,000 coffee capsules, collected from both personal use and online purchases—including rare and discontinued series that contribute to the uniqueness of each work.
The transformation of each capsule is a deliberate multi-step procedure. Once emptied and cleaned, they are filled with a ceramic compound that stabilizes their form. After a 24-hour curing period, they are ready for use in the final assembly. This structured preparation ensures that the capsules serve not only as aesthetic elements but as durable, tactile components of each composition. Their reflective surfaces interact with carefully selected backdrops—textured leathers, brushed metals, or aged woods—to create pieces that are both sculptural and painterly.
Every piece is marked with a seal and gold-coloured sealing lacquer instead of a signature, a gesture that reinforces its individuality and authenticity. From CARLOS, a monochrome study in vertical rhythm using layered leather and glossy capsules, to LAGUNA, which mimics the rays of light over water with hues of blue and gold, each artwork embodies a complete narrative. Kienzle’s meticulous design repertoire—spanning concept, capsule preparation, layout execution, and final sealing—elevates his work into a new dimension of upcycled art where spontaneity meets structure.
The HARMONY Series: Minimalism with Flair and Depth
Kienzle’s diverse body of work thrives on a dual commitment to minimalist precision and emotional depth. This synthesis is especially evident in his thematic series that tackle social and cultural questions. In GENDER, he deconstructs traditional color associations—blue for men, pink for women—through capsule arrangements and leather mosaics that explore gender fluidity and identity. The result is a visual commentary on the limitations of binary thinking, rendered through a careful interplay of color, symmetry, and material texture.
The work PALAZZO draws on historical architectural motifs, using mosaics and decorative tiles to conjure the opulence of Italian cityscapes. Meanwhile, LE MANS references the legendary 24-hour race with a striking composition in Gulf Oil’s orange and blue—complete with a clutch disc and marble tile—conveying speed, legacy, and design in a single piece. Other works like MONOCHROME investigate absence and repetition, echoing Malevich’s conceptual aesthetics without direct mimicry, and embracing the dramatic potential of black leather and aluminum surfaces. For detailed images and further descriptions of LE MANS, MONOCHROME, and CUBE, please visit www.my-art-kienzle.de.
In each creation, Kienzle merges the cool geometry of minimalist design with layered references to culture, history, and identity. His CUBE piece portrays human hierarchies through varying cube heights and capsule placements, while SWEET TEDDY turns plush fabric and pastel capsules into a critique of lifestyle consumerism masquerading as nostalgia. Even in works like NEO, where a blue circuit board meets the diagonal path of capsules, the message remains consistent: renewal is not simply about reuse, but about reinterpretation. Through his hands, the discarded becomes expressive; the ordinary becomes profound.
