Theatric Realism

The Theatric Realism conceives of the world as a permanent space of performance in which social orders, ideological sediments, and individual role models are continuously (re)enacted. Time often appears fragmented, cinematically edited, frozen in moments of maximum semantic density. Reality rarely manifests as a stable, rigid entity, but rather as a multi-layered arrangement of masks, costumes, props, stage sets, symbols, metaphors, and cultural codifications, which I organise conceptually. This invites comparison with biological mimicry (“imitation”), while emphasising that my arrangements do not falsify reality but instead expose it, placing it on display: it is staging that mercilessly reveals and makes visible the mechanisms of the world, like an amateur theatre laying itself bare. Within my panoptica I assume the position of observer and chronicler: semi-detached (unless I situate and participate in the scene myself), analytical, holistic, and synoptic — and always driven by an inexhaustibly curious heuresiophilia (joy of discovery) and gnosiophilia (joy of understanding): stupor mundi = the wonder of the world, though the grammatical structure of Latin leaves it unclear who is marvelling at whom: we at the world — or the world at us.

My painting functions simultaneously as record, commentary, and gloss — a visual chronicle of the “world out there”, which I experience and internalise directly as a plein-air painter, yet whose revelation through controlled observation only unfolds during prolonged, meticulous, and intensive work in the studio. It is there that pictorial spaces emerge as highly narrative tableaux in which events, hints, and subsidiary or internal actions overlap. Horror vacui (“fear of emptiness”) operates here as an epistemological principle: abundance is not a decorative excess but a deictic expression of a world that resists simplification. Realism operates as a strategic lure — a mimetic surface behind which a dense network of symbols, ironic fractures, and cynical — at times even sardonic — commentaries unfolds. The visible becomes the carrier of what is expressed, without ever exhausting itself in it. And what is visible falls to the curious viewer to discover: the stage becomes a fairground that advertises multiple inner narratives across several playing areas, manifesting on the canvas itself as a mise en abyme (“set into the abyss/depth”). Across all these stages I act simultaneously as director, yet my deepest aim is not the moral elevation of myself as an omniscient prophet in the sense of the cult of genius, but primarily the creation of a rich semiotic instrumentarium through which the world may be made comprehensible. The panoramic view becomes at times fragmented, multiply broken open — occasionally macabre — and permeated by an unrestrained brutality that does not sentimentalise what is depicted but dissects and presents it: ecce mundus = behold, this is the world!

Text and image captions expand the already complex, polydimensional painting by adding a further discursive dimension: they function as paratextual layers that engage more directly with the viewer and explicitly articulate a claim to communication. The Theatric Realism is not an escape but a confrontation: it seeks to be interpreted and understood; to be read, not consumed — not “TikToked” or “Instagrammed”. It invites the viewer, within its staged world-theatre, to assume the role of an informed participant. The recipient is thus encouraged to explore and investigate the pictorial space, ultimately to read it by constructing connections and demanding insight — but also, above all, to smile. My works are not intended to be taken with solemn earnestness, but to prompt an intellectual smile of understanding, for however obscure the world may seem, the human being remains a homo ridens = a laughing human.