Fabian Kindermann
Fabian Kindermann’s relationship to art developed indirectly and later in life. During high school, he was deeply immersed in literature through an influential German teacher and through studying Latin and Ancient Greek, reading authors such as Cicero and Homer. This education sharpened his sensitivity to language, symbolism, and structure, but creativity remained something he analyzed rather than practiced. At the time, he did not see himself as an artist, and artistic expression felt distant rather than embodied.
That changed only a few years ago, when he first began working with acrylics on canvas. A simple, unplanned gesture became decisive: splashing pigment from a brush and watching how color moved, collided, and merged on its own. The material’s behavior felt autonomous and alive, and that encounter reshaped his understanding of making. Painting became a dialogue between intuition and matter, driven not by planning but by attention and response. From that point forward, curiosity about how materials behave became central to his practice.
Kindermann works across cycles of material exploration, each shaped by a distinct substance such as acrylic gel, crackle medium, watercolor, or oil pastel. Rather than beginning with imagery, he allows rhythm, gesture, and physical interaction to guide the process. Layers accumulate through observation and intuition, responding to how materials dry, resist, collapse, or dissolve. Meaning is not constructed in advance but allowed to surface gradually. Forms and figures often emerge only after the work is complete, appearing as traces of subconscious movement rather than intentional symbols.
Recurring motifs in his work include faces, eyes, openings, and ambiguous figures, which arise through process rather than design. These elements relate closely to pareidolia, the human tendency to perceive meaning within abstraction. What interests him is the moment of emergence, when something begins to take shape but has not yet solidified into representation. These forms function as fleeting psychological markers, moments where tension, vulnerability, or perception briefly becomes visible.
His influences are grounded less in stylistic imitation than in shared approaches to process and perception. Artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jean Dubuffet affirmed the expressive potential of rawness and material resistance. From Max Ernst and Paul Klee, he drew trust in automatism and inner logic. The physical weight of Anselm Kiefer’s work, Jackson Pollock’s commitment to process, and Gerhard Richter’s embrace of doubt all inform his thinking. A particularly significant influence is Henri Michaux, whose engagement with inner states and automatic gesture resonates deeply with Kindermann’s own practice.
Periods of creative blockage are experienced as genuine resistance rather than temporary inconvenience. During these times, he avoids forcing production and instead stays close to the materials through preparation, observation, or sketching without expectation. He understands these pauses as moments of internal reorganization rather than absence. Over time, he has learned to trust that stillness and stagnation are part of the rhythm of making, allowing impulses to return quietly and necessarily.
Kindermann does not aim to communicate fixed narratives or messages. His work creates space for attentive looking, uncertainty, and resonance. Rather than offering explanation, the paintings hold tension open, allowing viewers to encounter their own responses within the image. Light and darkness, clarity and confusion, presence and absence coexist without resolution. As he notes, “I try to stay open to surprise. The unconscious always has its own plans and I just give it a surface to speak through. The rest is a dialogue I can only listen to.”
Currently, he is developing multiple bodies of work that expand his focus on intuitive process and material behavior. These series move between dense, layered compositions and quieter, more fragile surfaces, while also incorporating mixed media and watercolor. Rather than presenting isolated works, he plans to show them as interconnected constellations, tracing psychological movement over time. His practice remains oriented toward continuity and attentiveness, allowing the work to evolve, shift, and surprise as part of an ongoing dialogue.
