My art is communication, is change, is movement, is me

Born in Gelsenkirchen-Buer in 1976, Christian Nienhaus faces a wide range of artistic challenges and opportunities in his many projects. Powerful, captivating and multi-faceted, he seeks new paths away from the norm with his paintings and kinetic objects and shows himself to be versatile and open to other art forms far removed from any pigeonholing. It may be tempting to categorize Nienhaus’ painting and object art as separate from one another, but this cannot be done. Nienhaus does not describe his painterly work in terms of a picture, but rather as a project. It neither depicts nor represents. Rather, he creates his thoughts, experiences and encounters on complex topics of our time in a self-reflective, profound and meaningful way. He disguises the melancholy of art as lightness and has the consensus to interpret new things differently and thus break through boundaries. “When the idea of art arises from one’s own honesty, this thread of thought does not end on a piece of paper. It never ends. For me, a kinetic object is the conclusion of a phase where I say that the images are no longer enough for me – so I can achieve the maximum of what I want to express.” Thus his art and his actions live out of themselves, explain themselves, share themselves, act autonomously and as a magnifying glass on the artist himself. Nienhaus deliberately does not offer a guide to the profane understanding of his works. He succinctly calls his canvas works “mixed media”, which range from the use of conventional oil and acrylic to his own color production. His depictions are transfigured by the wild layering and superimpositions, which only partially reveal the motif. A wide variety of materials are also embedded. They are small drawings, photographs or found objects from everyday life. A repeated overpainting creates a translucent backdrop that draws the viewer into a deep dimension of the artist’s thoughts. “My art is communication, is change, is movement, is me.” In 2009, Nienhaus tried out a new type of art communication with “inspire me”. He presented himself live on the Internet and asked users to send him pictures and inspirations, which were projected synchronously via a projector and displayed on the screen by Nienhaus. In this way, the artist finds ways away from the hermetically demarcated places of traditional art presentation…