ABOUT

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Nicholas Ganz was born in Essen, Germany. He works as a journalistic street artist and author.
While he was active in political groups in the 1990s, he read instructions on how to spray graffiti in a magazine, and so the political slogans he had previously sprayed became works of art. However, he was unable to express himself solely through graffiti letters and soon began to paint figuratively.
Today, his artistic work focuses on people and their interaction with society. The experiences he gained during extended stays in Asia play a major role in his work. Nicholas deals with themes found in subcultures and shaped by his universal, Buddhist-anarchist approach.
Nicholas follows In a society where attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, he combined street art techniques with classical painting. He creates a contrasting antithesis to the culture from which he originally comes and acts like a documentary-philosophical artist.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I like contradictions. Life is full of contradictions. Like yin and yang, my paintings combine these opposites into an overall picture. The rapid application of paint with the spray can and the pause when painting with the brush, the clearly outlined areas of the stencil technique stand next to the merging colors of oil painting. I need these contrasts, because sometimes this fire blazes in me and at the same time I also enjoy the stillness of slowness. All this energy is transferred to my works.

I like to tell stories in my paintings. My focus is on the stories and experiences that can shape and define a personality. The stories I choose and portray connect with the experiences of the viewer. It is an invitation to linger and reflect.
Thus, I capture a meditative mood in my paintings and create works that do not pass like a brief moment. Just like a view from the train window, past which the world rushes and turns on.