Johannes Seluga

Johannes Seluga (b. 1998, Worms, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. His paintings grow from a process rooted in gesture, layering, and reduction rather than predetermined imagery. Working directly with oil, spatula, and brush, he builds and scrapes dense surfaces until forms begin to appear. With no fixed plan, the image emerges from the act of painting itself, suspended between abstraction and recognition.

Seluga’s approach is intuitive yet finely responsive. Each mark reacts to what has surfaced, forming a dialogue between intention, instinct, and chance. His works unfold like excavations of psychological and perceptual terrain, with earthy tones and flickers of light and bright colours carrying mood and atmosphere.

Within these textured fields, shapes gather and dissolve as if memory were trying to cohere but never fully settles. Interiors blur into atmospheres, landscapes into thresholds, and figures into brief presences at the edge of visibility. This ambiguity reflects Seluga’s interest in the spaces between noticing and fading. Rather than depicting fixed scenes, the paintings inhabit states of becoming. They invite slow, attentive looking, allowing meanings to shift with the gaze. 

Portrait by Julien Cott

ARTIST'S INSTAGRAM