»I am interested in more than mere physical likeness;
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.
Having already expressed a keen 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 at the Atelier Ohm during his teens, thus making him the studio’s youngest student to date. Upon graduating from high school with a focus on aesthetics and briefly working for one of Hamburg’s most renowned art galleries, he enrolled at the prestigious Florence Academy of Art in Italy in 2019, where he completed his three-year long studies and earned his diploma in late 2022.
In his studio located in the historic centre of Florence, only a few steps away from the Basilica di Santa Croce, Carl-Nikolas works with a constant eye on the old masters, particularly the great artists of the Baroque, such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Ribera. While primarily focussing on figurative and still life painting, he draws most of his inspiration from the Bible, music, 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 an unapologetic sense of realism and a striking chiaroscuro, enveloping his subjects in a golden light. They consist of many layers, some opaque, others transparent, rendering a lifelike representation of his subject matter. His painting approach is raw and emotive — he prefers to draw straight on the canvas with the brush and compose his pictures in a rather instinctive manner, which deeply connects him to the centuries-old schools of Lombardy and Venice.
Following the reawakening of his personal spirituality and his conversion to Catholicism, since 2025 Carl-Nikolas‘ artistic focus has shifted towards the creation of sacred art for churches and private places of worship. Notably, in early 2026 two of his paintings have been exhibited inside the Basilica di Santa Maria Novella in Florence alongside works by Vasari, Masaccio, Giotto, and other great masters from history. Besides communicating in his paintings what he believes to be truthful, he says that through the figurative work in his oeuvre he strives to express our shared humanity and the internal conflicts playing out within every individual:
»With every painting I hope to immortalise a soul on the canvas, partly my own, partly that of my model. I believe that the constant struggle of the Divine and its light within us against darkness and its temptations is universally true to our shared human experience. It is not least of all through the sense of light in my pictures that I strive to convey this internalised drama.«
Carl-Nikolas was a studio assistant at the Florence Academy of Art during his student days and went on to become a principal instructor at the Florence Art Studio from 2023 to 2024, until he began to offer private tuition in his personal studio and to teach occasional workshops within Italy as well as abroad. Firmly believing in the power of observational learning, he gives his 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 fields of sacred art and portraiture. His drawings and paintings can be found in private and public collections across the continents of Europe, North and South America, Australia, and Asia.
In his spare time Carl-Nikolas enjoys reading, writing, visiting churches and museums and taking long walks through the rolling hills of Tuscany surrounding his hometown of choice, the birthplace of the Renaissance, Florence.
