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 August Ohm at the Atelier Ohm during his teens, making him the artist’s youngest student to date. 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 and earned his certificate in late 2022.

In his studio located in the historic centre of Florence, only a few steps away from the church of Santa Croce, Carl-Nikolas works with a constant eye on the old masters, particularly the great artists of the Baroque and the 19th century. He draws most of his inspiration from music, literature, the visual arts and not least of all the beauty that surrounds 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 are defined by a striking chiaroscuro. They 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 soul on the canvas, partly my own, partly that of my model. 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 was a principal instructor at the Florence Art Studio from 2023 to 2024, until he began to offer private tuition in his personal studio as well as online and to teach occasional workshops within Italy and 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. His drawings and paintings can be found in private and public collections across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. 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.