Wladimir Timler, born in Kazakhstan and now living in Germany, has been doing art for as long as he can remember. At 20 years old, Wladimir is now ready to take a leap forward and pursue his dream of making art his profession.
How would you describe your art?
I mainly paint with oils and gouache, and mostly create surrealistic paintings. How I would describe my art is that I bring objects, people or even animals into unusual contexts, in which you normally wouldn’t see them. The ideas for my paintings first appear in my head as images that I then tinker with a little, I
add details to them and interpret them in such a way that a clear concept emerges. I want to get people to reflect on the meaning of my art. Everyone can interpret it the way they want. It is much more exciting for me to hear what others see in it and what feelings are triggered rather than limit myself to a single message.
When did you first start painting and how did your journey as an artist begin?
I have always done art, but in the last two years it has become clear to me that it is what I want to invest a lot of time in and eventually do for a living.
I started out just drawing for myself, and then later at school I had the opportunity to take an advanced art course, which I took advantage of. I was able to try out many things and kept going even after school.
The reason I now want to make art my job is that I have so much fun doing it. No matter where I am, no matter what I see, I immediately come up with ideas for new works of art.
Where do you get your inspiration from?
One source of inspiration is Instagram, because you can find many great artists on this platform. But often ideas just pop up in my head without a specific reason.
Do you have any specific influences in your work?
I find Salvador Dalí and Mike Dargas very inspiring. Mike Dargas is a painter from Cologne, Germany that has gained huge popularity over Instagram.
How has your art changed over time?
Looking back about a year ago, I often used fine liners and drew rather simple things. My art has now evolved to become more realistic. The reason is that I saw many artists paint in such a realistic / surrealistic style. I really liked that and my interest grew in that direction.
What have you recently been working on?
I recently concentrated on the business part of making art my career. I tried to make progress with marketing for example, because I believe it to be at least as important as painting itself.
As for my paintings, I decided to paint on some larger canvases now. For a long time I kept my pictures relatively small because I love details, so A4 was my largest format. The canvas I am currently working on however is 80x80cm, which for me is quite big.
What is the best advice you have been given as an artist?
You should start by learning the basics of drawing and practice a lot to master perspective, shapes, light, and shadow. I think that is extremely important before trying to produce any masterpiece.
What do you want to achieve in the future?
I would love to exhibit my art in galleries, and it is a big dream of mine to exhibit in London one day. I do have my first exhibition in Berlin at the beginning of June and I am incredibly excited.
Find Wladimir's work at the Figurative Art Exhibition at HAZE GALLERY Berlin 04/06-25/06.
In the meantime, have a look at his Instagram profile!
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