Krefeld is not a place name. Krefeld is a word. However, it is a word that carries few expectations. Krefeld is neither a promise nor a pledge, but rather a state of being that one grows accustomed to. Krefeld is the middle child and the piece of furniture that has always been there but has never been noticed.

While Sandow’s paintings have previously depicted situations in which places of longing were shattered by harsh reality (2021–2025) or harsh realities were imbued with romanticism (2017–2021), in Krefeld he explores the idea of introspective heroism—a heroism that requires no audience and generates meaning and pathos from within itself, yet waits in vain for external validation.

No, not waits. Rather, it accepts waiting as a state of being. Like a piece of furniture that has always been there.

(Text by Momo Trommer)

Tim Sandow's contentual imagery feeds on the tragedy of the everyday, which can only be grasped through the sensitive observation of human gestures and situations. His chosen image excerpts appear like cinematic sceneries, which Sandow arranges sensitively and deliberately, thus acting in a staged manner.

Through disconcerting depictions of his protagonists, Sandow develops for himself a distanced but not self-excluding position of the viewer. This enables him to act without any classification. His painterly created in-between worlds create a gentle as well as radical view on social clichés without evaluating them. Sandow's narratives point to the quiet nuances of everyday interactions, which so often give rise to personal anecdotes and stories. For some, perhaps a politically incorrect pub joke, for others a cinematic memoir. Inspired by film and photography, the artist creates his own worlds that allow the viewer to become part of a fictional script and, through the generated moment of a 'film still', a participant in the supposed production itself.

Tim Sandow, born in 1988, lives and works in Wuppertal, Germany. He graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien in 2019 with Daniel Richter.