THE Painter

As a free artist, Jan A. Birck (JAB) currently works in southern Italy, not far from the Amalfi Coast, creating his works in a well-hidden studio that rises like a tree house in an olive grove above the Gulf of Salerno.

On the one hand, this results in an untamed remix of the visual worlds that JAB encountered during a period from the analog telephone to the modern glamour of new media: smart business models that shamelessly exploit him (and all of us) – while JAB, conversely, draws inspiration from new media whenever he needs it.

Pop art? – perhaps.

But JAB does not lose sight of the real world in which he lives: he looks around, discovers scenes and people, and thus what actually makes life both tragic and beautiful.

Contemporary realism? – why not.

JAB: "Today, we live in two different visual worlds: the real world and the virtual world. I process what leaves an impression on me. The real and virtual worlds can merge, interlock, communicate with each other and contradict each other in my pictures."

JABs works are sometimes experimental, sometimes realistic, sometimes partly expressive, sometimes with a humorous wink, created with brush and palette knife on whatever surface is suitable or available: Oil, acrylic, mixed media on canvas, wood, hardboard or simply on his moving boxes to Italy.

November 2025