FACETS OF CREATION | KATJA TOMZIG

FACETS OF CREATION
By Gold List Award Artist Katja Tomzig

“My work presents creatures and scenes that don’t emanate from my imagination; instead, they arise from a splash of color to be made visible to others with my pencil and brush. Every painting invites the viewer into a brief, relaxing getaway that liberates the mind. Through this, a new space is created. I remind the viewer of their creativity by showing them how it can look when one expands their perspective to make room for something new. After all, we live in an exciting time where everything is possible. “

Gold List Award Artist Katja Tomzig (b.1975 in Dresden, Germany) started her artistic journey in 2005 when she decided to shift her profession. She had a strong passion for art, and on her 40 years birthday, she chose joy!
Since her studies at the Cologne academy for fine art, she has exhibited nationally and internationally, including a solo exhibition in Dresden in 2022, group exhibitions in London and Brussels, and at the prestigious Discovery Art Fair Cologne in 2021 and 2020, and her work will be presented at the upcoming Discovery Art Fair Cologne this April 2023.
Katja’s work has been published internationally in leading art magazines, including the Gold List Award publication, published by Art Market Magazine in 2022, which received enormous distribution at the bookstores and the Discovery Art Fair, Frankfurt, 2022.

“Even as a child, I knew that a lot is living around us that most of us just can’t see (yet). Since 2005 and regularly since 2019, I have been allowed to paint such scenes; the creatures come to me by themselves through splashes of color. I call them FACETS OF CREATION.
I am very grateful for this gift – I feel extraordinarily blessed!”

I was fortunate to be surrounded by art and artists as I was raised by painters. Both my grandfathers and my father painted a lot. I painted with them from an early age. I was profoundly impressed and drawn to the Old Master’s style, and my goal was to achieve this high technique.
After twelve years of school and four semesters of studying to be an art teacher, it was clear that I would never achieve my goal this way. So with a heavy heart, I turned to other tasks that did not make me happy.
Then, on my 40th birthday, I told myself, “If you wish to be happy with what you do in your life, you must now look for the school where you will finally learn what you always wanted to learn!” So I searched for an art school and found two private art schools in Cologne, Germany, which taught the craft. I attended both, one after the other, building up and coming close to my goal. Then, surprisingly, I was inspired, and the image of my creation came to my mind. I’ve been filled with joy since.

“Katja Tomzig’s paintings are populated by a series of recurring figures and symbols that take place in dream-like scenarios. They are fantastic worlds, populated by surreal beings from the human, animal, and natural worlds, inviting us to surrender to the discovery of the detail, the unknown, and the mystery in order to allow the viewer to create a very individual interpretation of the image tempt.”
– Dr. Monica Ferrarini, Art Critic, and Curator. Rome, Italy. 2021

More by chance than anything else, years before, I discovered a multitude of creatures in a drawing sheet blotted with paint and enthusiastically traced them with a pencil. I remembered this in the spring of 2019 during a long, tiresome illness and took a stack of blotting paper to my sofa and, lying down, freed one creature after another from the splash of color and brought it into our world. This was so fascinating and exciting that I am still working on my series of paintings, “FACETS OF CREATION.”
The first paintings fit on a clipboard and were more drawings; today, the artworks are up to 140cm wide and partly fully painted. I work with egg tempera, watercolor paint and pencils, water-soluble metallic paint, and sometimes coffee or tea on different paper types.

When I finish a painting, I am already curious to see who will meet me on the following artwork. Even as a child, it was clear that our vision is somehow limited – much more exists and acts around us than we see.
When I rediscovered the creatures in the blobs of color, it quickly became clear to me that these kinds of paintings, apart from the joy they spread, are also a fantastic way to give an impression of what all is possible when one widens one’s heart and horizons, unfolds and applies one’s creative power.
Truly anything is possible; it depends on each individual and what they bring into the field of vision. We can all live in a beautiful world full of miracles. Right now.
When I’m not freeing creatures from splashes of color, I think of plants that relax and beautify the lives of many beings here on earth – such as the EbaHuri tree. Its football-sized fruits in red and yellow taste like strawberries or bananas when raw and like beef or chicken when cooked or fried. Its skin is better than leather, and its vast petals make the finest paper in the world when dried.
It flowers and matures all year round and sheds all its bark once a year, which makes it an excellent material for furniture or houses. When I finish putting it all down on paper, I will publish it, and I believe that the more people see the new plants, the more likely they will grow in our meadows. Don’t you think? I’m trying it out, and I’m already very excited 🙂

“In these imaginary scenarios, we discover the joy of color, the delicacy of the features, and the infinite variety of enveloping chromatic textures that delineate a charming compositional space.”
-Dr. Monica Ferrarini, Art Critic, and Curator. Rome, Italy. 2021

See the full article in Art Market Magazine Issue #78