Tobias Wyrzykowski: Dreamscapes Between Mastery and Release

Wyrzykowski's work is intangible, ambiguous, or attempt to capture dream images. They emerge intuitively and quickly, depending on mood, at times absent-mindedly or inspired by dream fragments. Recurring motifs include the four elements, the cosmos, seascapes and horizons, as well as snow and ice, forests and meadows—sometimes interwoven with references to figures from art history.

Traces of human presence are almost entirely absent from his oil paintings, which may contribute to the sense of calm conveyed by strong colors and gestural brushwork. In his most recent works, Tobias Wyrzykowski uses gouache on black-primed canvas, creating multi-dimensional pictorial spaces through a slow, layered process involving long drying times, revisions, reworking, and the deliberate re-pouring of paint. The paintings do not depict a concrete scene but instead offer a vague, washed-out, fragmented impression of landscape, into which horizons, stones, walls, and layers of earth appear to “drift.” This results in a controlled oscillation between mastery and release, between precision and chance, until each painting settles into its own rhythm. At the heart of his practice is the act of painting itself—color on canvas, inspired by nature but not bound to it.

ArtDependence (AD): How does your work reflect your view of the world right now?

Tobias Wyrzykowski (TW): In contrast to many contemporary art movements that are often provocative and strongly conceptual, my approach as a painter follows a different path. It is less guided by an intellectual concept – such as The Milk of Dreams – and more rooted in a sense of dreaminess, melancholy, and stillness.