The Artistry of Tilo Uischner

One of the odd things about how we think of art is our inclination to categorize an artist based on the medium he or she chooses to employ. So we refer to someone as a "sculptor," or a "painter," or a "print-maker." But what if the artist uses an unusual medium? Do we coin a new phrase? Do we pretend the medium doesn't matter?

In the case of the remarkable artistry of Tilo Uischner we have a way out of our dilemma. Certainly we do not coin a new phrase. It would be unnecessary to do so. The medium of wood, acting more like painting than sculpture in his use of it, does not define him, although we marvel at his mastery of it. Once we applaud his technique, which coaxes out of this organic substance a range of subtle visual meanings we had not expected, we realize that for Uischner as for all artists of range and depth it is what he seeks to express that moves us and defines him.

If we must categorize him at all, we can focus on his subject matter, for in most of his work Uischner looks at human beings, their faces, their postures, the angularity of their bodies. This artist is a portraitist, or better said, a portrayer of the poignancy, the contradictions, the strains and seductions of our human existence. We do not, for the most part, look to him for sweetness, even though often he depicts children and children are represented in our sentimental culture mostly as sweet. He respects them, and the rest of his subjects as complex, as susceptible to darkness as well as light, as most of all In Between: in between innocence and experience, in between sociability and inwardness, in between sensual physicality and spirituality. In short, his subjects are unresolved, as are we all.

There is tremendous beauty in Uischner's work, but it is beauty often sullen, often mysterious, often even menacing. It exhilarates us because it is beauty bought with truth not sentiment, beauty that challenges us, moves us, and even on the edges is capable of frightening us. And we can't take our eyes from these faces. They often fix their eyes on us, do not demur but instead challenge us with the question "why do you look?"

And why do we look? We look most of all because Tilo Uischner has done what all first rate artists alone can do, make us look at at human existence with his own unblinking eye. That he can do it with a mastery of material and technique adds to our pleasure and wonder and need to look again and again. And we realize also what we almost forgot what art can do, make us understand what it is to be human.


Marc Pachter
Director Emeritus
National Portrait Gallery
Washington, DC




Born - Riesa, Elbe, Saxony 1969

He began drawing at an early age and is mostly self taught.
Moved to Berlin in 1989 just months before the wall came down to study Economics at Humboldt University.
He earned his Diploma in 1995 and started working for a governmental enterprise.

In 2000 he changed subject and became a creative consultant for event creation and organization companies.

Painting large scale, changed his medium from oil and watercolors to acrylic paints. His preoccupation with furniture design made him interested in old techniques of woodworking in general and marquetry in particular.

Today he is masterly combining the medium of acrylic with his skills of intarsia creating something entirely new.
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