»I am interested in more than mere physical likeness — it is the essence, the soul, that intrigues me.«

Carl-Nikolas von Tiedemann is a classical draughtsman and painter born in 2000 in Hamburg, Germany.

Already expressing a heightened interest in art at a very young age, Carl-Nikolas began attending various privately taught classes in drawing and painting early in his life, which eventually led him to study with artist August Ohm at the Atelier Ohm during his teens. After graduating from high school with a focus on aesthetics, he enrolled at the prestigious Florence Academy of Art in Italy, where he completed his three-year-long studies in late 2022. Since late 2023 he is an artist in residence at the Pneuma Art Foundation.

In his studio located in the historic centre of Florence, Carl-Nikolas works with a constant eye on the old masters, particularly the great artists of the High Renaissance, the Baroque, and the 19th century. He draws most of his inspiration from history's greatest works of art, music and literature, as well as from his own life experience and the people that surround him. In his practice, he continuously seeks to connect to the past through the traditional materials he works with and by following classical methods that have been applied for centuries. His carefully crafted oil paintings consist of many layers, some opaque, others transparent, rendering a lifelike representation of his subject matter. The figurative work in his oeuvre serves a humanistic endeavour, in which he strives to express our shared humanity and the internal conflicts playing out within every individual.

»I want to create visual poems. With every painting I hope to eternalize a part of my soul on the canvas. Once there is a real feeling of presence in the picture, a sense of calm melancholy as well as some internalized drama, I know that I can let go of it.«

Carl-Nikolas offers private instruction in his personal studio and occasionally teaches workshops within Italy as well as abroad. Firmly believing in the power of observational learning, he gives his private students the opportunity to immerse themselves in intensive studies of drawing and painting from life right alongside him, while he creates his own work. Furthermore, he is regularly taking on commissions, first and foremost in the field of portraiture. In his spare time he enjoys reading, writing, and taking long walks through the rolling hills of Tuscany surrounding his hometown of choice, the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence.