Tobias Degel was born in Saarbrücken in 1989, a city in Germany right on the border with France. For the past seven years, he has been living in Wiesbaden. His studio is located in an attached garage of the shared studio, where various creative minds work. Tobias studied graphic design in Trier, which exposed him to a lot of design and art topics. Through his parents, he was introduced to Braun Design and renowned artists like Keith Haring at an early age. He is still very much inspired by Basquiat and Kline.
Since when do you paint and what are your favourite motives?
I have occasionally worked with analog techniques, but since 2022 I have been focusing on producing art pieces. My subjects consist of a mix of banal naivety, hidden criticism, and abstract forms. Sometimes a certain abstraction arises from reducing objects and things to their simplest form of representation.
When you create a new work, how do you proceed? What comes first?
I work a lot with studies and sketches in small formats, which I then sometimes recreate in larger sizes. However, the execution often changes due to the format and colors. Paper collages are a good mental exercise for spontaneity. My simple style of representation in some artworks partly originated from using a drawing app on my phone with one hand. I got the idea while carrying our child in a baby carrier for hours. It was a good exercise to allow chance to play a role.
From what do you get your motivation?
The certainty that creating keeps me in good spirits. It also provides a strong contrast to my digital work. In the end, a haptic product is created, which constantly changes with the environment, light, and shadow. This brings me a lot of joy. If I then manage to evoke emotions in the viewer with my art, I have done everything right.
Your life without art would be...
Much less exciting. My creative process is also greatly inspired by music, which is based on another form of art. Art inspires itself from art. A life without art is unimaginable.
What is the best art place in your city at the moment?
I can't say exactly. There are many opportunities to consume art that suddenly appear in exhibitions. Certainly soon at the newly opened Reinhard Ernst Museum. That will be fantastic. Historically, the entire city is a museum. If you imagine the cars are gone, you might think you are in the middle of the 19th century.
Learn more about the artist:
