Florian Thiemann

At a traffic light in Berlin-Schöneberg, artist Florian Thiemann noticed a woman standing on the opposite side of the street and he took a quick photo with his phone. That moment became the starting point for his painting “Attitude”. The work in our show was made shortly after Florian Thiemann moved to Berlin. The encounter with the woman — a stranger — stayed with him. Her quiet confidence, something about her posture, her presence — calm, self-contained, beautifully unaffected.
Florian studied Fine Arts in Cologne. He developed his technique and visual language by translating spatial constructions and three-dimensional space into paintings. After digitally reducing and editing the original photo, Florian prints it at scale. Then he begins applying paint in layers — masking shapes, building color fields, letting the image slowly emerge. A painting like this can take the artist weeks, sometimes months. It becomes a form of prolonged reflection: not just on what he saw, but on what the image means to him. His subjects changed over time: today, he applies the same technique to people and lively sceneries. What remains is his process — slow, precise, manual. Over the past five months in Berlin, he has completed four such portraits. One is still in progress. All are based on real moments, captured in the flow of urban life. This portrait is part of the Woman Portrait Gallery — a group exhibition dedicated to contemporary representations of women. And while sovereignty is not tied to gender, this particular image is inspired by a woman whose strength felt deeply earned. Sovereignty, as Florian sees it, isn't something we're born with. It's something that grows — through experience, through time, through living. It's not a loud quality, but a grounded one. And perhaps, it's one of the few things in life that can't be rushed. Sometimes, it belongs to age more than youth.