David Lynch’s photographs and sculptures are darkly alluring in Berlin

The late film director’s artistic practice is the focus of a new exhibition at Pace Gallery, Berlin (29 January – 22 March 2026)

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Black and white photograph by David Lynch, with the director seen reflected in a mirror
David Lynch, Untitled (Berlin 5364: 21), 1999
(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

Although best known as a filmmaker, David Lynch (1946-2025) considered himself first and foremost a visual artist. In the late 1960s, he studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, where he created his first ‘moving painting’, Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times). Merging mediums and materials, it offered an early hint of the experimentation that was to define his career.

David Lynch hand-drawn artwork showing aeroplane and person shooting sheep

David Lynch, It was Linda who..., 2021

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

David Lynch drawn artwork of blurred figure pointing with extra-long arm

David Lynch, Oh Oh Oh I Got Good News for You, 2009-2010

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

Throughout his life, Lynch went on to create sculptures, watercolours, film, photographs and paintings, many of which are to be united in an exhibition at Pace Gallery, Berlin. Opening on 29 January 2026, it is a teaser for a major retrospective set to open at Pace, Los Angeles this autumn. The exhibition follows rare but significant showings of Lynch’s art, including 2007’s ‘The Air Is on Fire’ at Fondation Cartier in Paris and 2018’s ‘Someone Is in My House’ at the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, featuring more than 500 works.

Light sculpture by David Lynch comprising a red zig-zag within a metal framework

David Lynch, Red Zig-Zag, 2022

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

Painting by David Lynch showing a boy beside a tree, in which sit abstract, oversized creatures

David Lynch, Billy (and His Friends) Did Find Sally in the Tree, 2018

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

Works here include the ‘factory’ series of photographs that Lynch took at deserted industrial sites in Berlin in 1999, which captured an evocative and empty world of broken windows, chimneys and machinery. Their beauty sits alongside his unsettling paintings, which intertwine surrealist themes with text and open-ended images. His watercolours, in his distinctive muted palette splashed with reds and yellows, are presented in the frames Lynch designed himself.

Elsewhere, upright lamp sculptures built from steel, resin, Plexiglas, plaster, and wood add to the atmosphere of finding beauty in the unexpected, much like Lynch himself.

Pace Gallery in Berlin presents work by David Lynch from 29 January to 22 March 2026, pacegallery.com

Dark painting in frame, by David Lynch

David Lynch, Tree At Night, 2019

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

Black and white photograph of drinking tap and basin set in grubby factory wall, by David Lynch

David Lynch, Untitled (Factory, Berlin 5359: 10), 1999

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)

Tall light sculpture by David Lynch

David Lynch, Matchstick Lamp C, 2019

(Image credit: © The David Lynch Estate, courtesy Pace Gallery)
Hannah Silver
Hannah Silver

Hannah Silver is a writer and editor with over 20 years of experience in journalism, spanning national newspapers and independent magazines. Currently Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*, she has overseen offbeat art trends and conducted in-depth profiles for print and digital, as well as writing and commissioning extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury since joining in 2019.