Armin Dietrich

Armin Dietrich is a Berlin-based painter working at the intersection of abstraction and figuration. After twenty years as an editorial and advertising photographer, he left the medium in 2020 when increasing digitalization stripped away his creative control. The last five years have been a period of radical experimentation, leading him to his current practice: spray gun, oil paint, and direct work with his hands.

Dietrich paints cityscapes – not as documentation, but as emotional landscapes. His work explores the layered histories of urban environments, drawing inspiration from weathered facades, graffiti paint-overs, and the constant flux of city life. He approaches painting with a distinctly anti-nostalgic stance, rejecting sentimentality for the energy of transformation and change.

His process begins with preparing the canvas like an urban surface – building up layers, wounds, and patina over several days, guided by the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi. He then applies oil paint with a spray gun, bringing together street technique and art historical material. Working primarily with his hands, he creates paintings that develop over months through a non-linear process of layering, waiting, forgetting, and rediscovering.

Dietrich's formal language draws from Arshile Gorky's organic abstraction and the Cobra painters, particularly Karel Appel, rather than from street art. His abstract gestures reject the heavy symbolism of 1980s Neo-Expressionism in favor of energy, movement, and contemporary urban color.

His earlier photographic practice explored the boundaries between photography and painting through series including "UNCLAD" (2017), "GODS and MONSTERS" (2018), and "TRACES of RITUALS" (2019), exhibited in galleries across Europe. These works marked a gradual transition from photography into the full embrace of painting as his primary medium.

Dietrich's current work reflects his conviction that painting must resist quick consumption, creating works that oscillate between figuration and abstraction, demanding time and repeated looking. The paintings are in flux – just like the city itself.