Fabian Kindermann
- Jan 26
- 3 min read
Fabian Kindermann is a Vienna-based painter who works in layered, material-driven abstraction. He often starts without a fixed image, building the surface through cycles of acrylic, crackle medium, watercolor, and oil pastel, following how the materials react and settle. Faces, eyes, and small figures tend to appear only at the end, once the painting is finished and he steps back.
Q: When you begin a painting without a predefined image, what usually makes you start?
A: I often work in cycles, each marked by a different material language: acrylic gel, crackle medium, watercolor, oil pastel. Every substance triggers a new curiosity, a different way of thinking through touch. The process itself becomes the impulse: while applying, scraping, or diluting, new forms begin to appear almost on their own. It feels as if the unconscious is suggesting new possibilities of how matter can behave, and I simply follow. Painting becomes a dialogue between intuition and material agency, where discovery replaces intention.
Q: How do you know when to keep going and when to stop while working in layers?
A: It depends on how I apply the layers. When working wet-on-wet, it’s a mix of observation and intuition. I watch how the materials react, how drying phases shift, and sense when it’s time for the next layer.
With dry layers, it’s almost entirely physical, a feeling in the body. The painting itself begins to communicate, telling me when to continue and when to stop. There’s always a moment when it seems to say: now is the right time for another gesture, or now, let me be.
Q: What guides your material choices when different mediums meet on the same surface?
A: My material choices follow a kind of cyclical rhythm. I work in phases where certain substances dominate: acrylic, gel, watercolor, pastel, crackle medium, each leaving unconscious traces that influence the next. These transitions become conversations between materials, carried across time. I test their compatibility, their limits, and how one can transform another without losing its essence. It’s a process of negotiation: maintaining each medium’s individual voice while allowing a new visual language to emerge from their encounter. In this sense, painting becomes a field of coexistence, a place where difference creates harmony.
Q: When do you first notice eyes or figures appearing in your abstractions?
A: These figures usually appear later, after the work is finished. During painting, I’m often in a trance-like state, guided by rhythm and gesture rather than image. The faces, eyes, and hybrid forms reveal themselves only when I step back, like messages surfacing from the unconscious. In the Chronogramm series, they often appeared with a certain sense of humor or irony, as if the unconscious were playing with me, inserting something unexpected or even parodic into the image. One of the most rewarding moments is standing in front of the finished work and realizing what the unconscious has tried to say through the process.
Q: What was your focus while working on "Chronogramm #005"?
A: "Chronogramm #005" is one of the early works in the series, and it began with a simple impulse: to divide the surface into four quadrants, almost like a subconscious cross. I didn’t paint each section in sequence; instead, I moved between them intuitively, responding to whichever area seemed to call for attention. It was an unconscious process of balancing presence and absence, as if each part demanded to be seen in its own rhythm. Toward the end, the upper arc appeared naturally, connecting the separated fields into a single structure. The Chronogramm series itself functions as a kind of visual diary, each painting a snapshot of what my unconscious wanted to communicate on that particular day.
Q: After finishing a group of works, what stays with you most from making it?
A: What stays with me most is the understanding of how materials behave: their limits, reactions, and the way they combine. Even when these insights are stored unconsciously, they shape everything that follows. Working on paper or with contrasting structures helps me feed my intuition with new impulses, new languages of form. These experiments often reappear transformed in later paintings, like echoes of unseen lessons. For me, this constant dialogue between material discovery and inner reflection is the real inspiration, the foundation for each new cycle of work. "The Unconscious Loves Surprises."
