about
Tom K (b. in 1964) is a Swiss artist working in painting, printmaking, and works on paper. He produces one to three works per year — sometimes none. Each piece begins with ideas, sketches, or materials accumulated over years, then moves through a process that can take months or longer, arriving at a result that is rarely what was first imagined.
His practice resists stylistic consistency and deliberate repetition. What connects the work is not aesthetic continuity but a shared quality of openness — images that do not explain themselves, that hold something back, that remain slightly unresolved. Layering and overpainting are central to his process: not as correction, but as a form of negotiation with what already exists on the surface.
Current series include Earth, Monoprints, and Paperworks. A new series, Society, is in preparation.
Tom K chooses to remain anonymous. He is a living person, not a group or a machine.
in conversation
Your work feels simultaneously raw and controlled. How does a new piece begin?
At the start, I often have a relatively clear picture of the end result — ideas, sketches, materials I've been carrying around for years. Things that have accumulated over time. But as soon as I begin painting, something autonomous happens. The work detaches from that original idea. I tend to follow it rather than try to impose the idea onto it. And in the end, the result is almost always open. Not unfinished — but not conclusive either.
Your paintings can read like snapshots of inner states — almost frozen emotions. Do you paint consciously from a feeling, or does that emerge through the process?
The feeling is rarely clear at the beginning. It's more of a pressure. Something unspoken. When I start, there's no specific emotion like "grief" or "anger." It's more a state of… unrest. It's only during the painting that something crystallises. Sometimes I only realise hours later — ah, that's what it was about. And sometimes I still don't know.
You work a lot with layers and overlaps. What does painting over mean for you?
Overpainting isn’t correcting for me. It’s more of a… concealing. Or perhaps a negotiation with what’s already there. I don’t destroy — I displace. What lies beneath always remains present, even when it’s no longer directly visible. Like memory, in truth.
Are there artists or influences that have shaped you?
I try to forget influences rather than collect them. There are artists who accompany you — of course. But as soon as I notice I’m orienting myself too strongly toward something, I deliberately push against it. I’m not interested in how something should look. I’m interested in when something is genuine.
Your works leave a lot of room for interpretation. Is that deliberate?
Yes. I have no interest in telling a story to its conclusion. A painting shouldn’t explain — it should stay open. Maybe even slightly uncomfortable. If someone stands in front of a work and immediately understands what it "means," I’ve probably given too much away.
Your paintings Last Iceberg and Mount Rigi feel different — almost documentary. Why go there?
Landscape painting has been processing nature for hundreds of years. Friedrich, Turner, Cezanne, the whole tradition — they painted mountains as eternal, as sublime. I find that hard to sustain. Mount Rigi is still there. The iceberg probably isn't. Painting it feels less like continuing a tradition and more like noting an absence before it happens.
Is there something you deliberately don't want to show in your work?
Yes. Everything that is too unambiguous. Once something becomes too clear, it loses tension for me. I don't want to give answers. I want people to feel slightly uncertain — not uncomfortable, but not safe either.
How do you know when a work is finished?
When I start to ruin it. That’s usually the point at which I stop — most of the time. Unless I’ve already gone too far, and the ruining becomes the work.
How do you relate to the art market — prices, sales, expectations?
With ambivalence. On one hand, it's necessary — it gives me the means to keep working. On the other, it changes perception. Once a work has a price, it gets read differently. I try to block that out. But you can't escape it entirely.
What are you actually looking for in your work?
A moment of clarity. Even if it only lasts briefly.