Artist Spotlight – CRAZY CANVAS Community

The self-taught painter Ilja Freer processes many stages of his life in abstract acrylic paintings. He was born in Berlin in 1976 and has enjoyed painting and drawing since he was a young boy. In the 1990s, as a teenager, he experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall. Everywhere in the city, something new emerged almost overnight. He and his friends took care of the city's mostly gray facades and designed them as colorful works of art as graffiti artists. That was his contribution during this time to making the city more colorful and making it a place where everyone who wants to change something is welcome. Since 2019, he has swapped the spray cans for spatulas and brushes. In his artistic work, he experiments a lot with color and technique. He likes to play intuitively with the norm that deviates from reality.

Fabián Stetie was born in Buenos Aires in 1963, in permanent contact with painting since he was 16 years old. Self-taught in his beginnings to later formalize his studies passing through workshops at Estímulo de Bellas Artes with Alicia Besada, Amigos de Bellas Artes, Ernesto Pesce, Roberto Scafidi and Ariel Mlynarzewicz to date.

During the 90’s he showed his paintings at the Centro Cultural Recoleta on several occasions, to return to solo exhibitions during the year 2023.

"I look to merge stories, sensations of our lives, scenarios, works and rituals, seeking to exorcise sorrows and showing hope"

Thomas Pöllmann , born in 1969, grew up in the Hochsauerland region and moved to Berlin in 1995. From an early age he was interested in rooms and their furnishings. He always had the room as a whole in mind. In addition to colors and shapes, energies and their qualities play an important role. Following the motto, “designing a room well is actually quite simple, you just need some nice furniture and, above all, good art,” he advises customers and designs rooms at home and abroad.

He draws inspiration from his travels, among other places. In connection with the establishment of the German Foreign Office's diplomatic missions abroad, these took him to more than 30 countries on 6 continents.

In addition to drawing, he has devoted himself intensively to abstract painting for several years. In his studio in Berlin, he creates both small and large-format oil paintings on various surfaces. Intuition plays a central role in his work and chance plays a major role, and it is important to him that a picture emerges and is not intentional. Months can pass before a work is finished.

His paintings hang in apartments, offices and conference rooms, foyer areas and also in the Federal Chancellery in Berlin.

Jinran Kim, who grew up in Seoul, lives and works in both Berlin and Seoul. She studied sculpture at Seoul National University and the University of the Arts in Berlin. Her works are included in various renowned collections, such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Korea and the MMK Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt am Main. In Berlin, her works have been exhibited several times in solo exhibitions.

Her most recent series of works presents different views of a mystical, desolate winter landscape, crafted from gauze and ash. The black-and-white landscapes appear very tangible due to the plastic modeling with gauze and invite viewers to immerse themselves in this icy, wintery world. Upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the motifs are composed of individual threads of gauze—a delicate and fine material typically used for wound healing. Here, the artist employs it to create new, captivating worlds.

Olivier Kéros is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Berlin. He is creating worlds full of joy and adventures in his paintings. He grew up in poverty and painting was the best way to make his visions clear while building up a new future through it. His style is very unique in the way he combines abstraction and neo-expressionism with clear forms and figures but also the way he uses colors.

Thomas Chmielecki is a young and versatile artist working with acrylics, gouache, watercolors, colored pencils, graphite, and charcoal. His artistic journey began in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, inspired by his mother, who has been active in creative crafts and painting for over 30 years. Initially self-taught, he expanded his knowledge through specialized literature, online videos, and later formal courses.

His interest in photorealistic portrait painting opened new possibilities, prompting him to focus intensively on developing his craft. Currently, he is studying at the Roland Kuck Academy, specializing in acrylic and watercolor painting, and is in his third semester.

In addition to his passion for art, he experiments with new techniques, such as oil painting, and pursues numerous creative ideas – since 2024, also using canvases from CRAZY CANVAS. He particularly enjoys working with the COTTON FINE fabric, which is ideal for his detailed airbrush work.

Thomas has had his first exhibitions in collaboration with a gallery in Bad Dürkheim. For updates and insights into his art world, visit his website: www.artbythomas.de.

Nele Sadlo studied fine arts with a focus on painting in Essen and Madrid. In her large-format, figurative oil paintings, bodies meet each other, spanning the field of tension between the inner perceived reality and the external visible reality. Her painting helps her to negotiate and better understand the relationship between the constantly changing self and the world. In addition to her work as an artist, Nele is currently studying art history and philosophy in Berlin in order to devote herself more to the theoretical discussion of art.