Frank Nitsche ARENA Painting from Children's Land

“ARENA” – Paintings from the Land of Children

In his paintings, Frank Nitsche creates a fantastical world. His pictures are populated by figures from childhood: clowns, acrobats, jesters, jugglers, kings, and chieftains. They act in a colorful jumble full of daydreams. The fabulous and the real mingle in a vibrant whirlwind.

Frank Nitsche’s figures, and even more so the spaces in which they act, are difficult to grasp. They defy a rigid formal language. Everything intertwines with everything else; the forms dissolve and, upon closer inspection, clearly coalesce. This interplay follows a rhythm—light and fundamentally cheerful.

The painter says of his paintings: “My paintings are best understood by thinking of music. Rhythm and sounds—basically, I paint soundscapes.”

The inhabitants of his paintings are not adults; they come from “the land of children.” They inhabit their world with self-assurance, absorbed in themselves, and anything but heroes. A touch of melancholy always lingers.

Frank Nitsche’s paintings transport us to a world full of color and music – far removed from the everyday. They feel somehow familiar. This intimacy speaks of everyone’s own whimsical world in a life-affirming way.