MEDIZIN: Felix Kiessling
MEDIZIN by Felix Kiessling, invites us into a confrontation with perception itself. At first glance, the Lila Sonne (2025) seems simple: a monochromatic circle suspended on a neutral wall, stark in its minimalism. Yet, as you stand before it, something unsettling happens. The color detaches from the surface—not in a literal sense, but in the way it radiates, vibrates, and seems to extend beyond its own boundaries. A soft halo of light surrounds the form, creating a perceptual ambiguity.
What is real, and what is illusion? Is the glow an actual physical effect, or a trick of the eye? Is this just pigment on a wall, or has Kiessling managed to make color itself into an object, a presence hovering in space? This is not just a painting, nor is it merely an optical illusion. It exists in an in-between state, where materiality and perception dissolve into one another.
Compared to his earlier work Antisonne, a black circle that could be read as a void, a rupture, or even a representation of absence, Lila Sonne pushes further toward pure experience. Kiessling refers to it as an “enhanced reduction,” a term that encapsulates its paradoxical nature. The less there is, the more we see. By stripping away any explicit reference or representation, he allows color to exist in its most elemental and immersive form.
The lilac hue of Lila Sonne is not just a color — it is a density, a field of energy that seems to stretch beyond the confines of the wall. It doesn’t sit passively on the surface but instead exerts a kind of gravitational pull, inviting the viewer to fall into its depth. Purple, historically associated with both the mystical and the imperial, here takes on a new presence. It pulses softly, appearing at once material and immaterial, fixed yet fluid, embodying a sensation that seems to hover between calm and charged.
This work does not tell a story. It does not symbolize anything. And yet, it generates an undeniable emotional and physical response. Kiessling shifts our attention from what we are looking at to the act of seeing itself. Where does the artwork end, and perception begin? How much of what we experience is dictated by the object, and how much by the way our minds process reality? Lila Sonne demands that we engage not just with it, but with the limits of our own perception.
In this way, Kiessling’s work belongs to a long tradition of artists who explore the fundamental nature of vision and reality, yet he does so with an almost scientific precision. His approach is not about abstraction in the traditional sense — it is about creating conditions for a specific kind of encounter, one where the viewer becomes acutely aware of the interaction between light, space, and their own presence in the room.
This is not just a circle. It is a threshold, a portal into an experience that is as much about what is physically present as it is about what is felt, sensed, and intuited. Lila Sonne is not an object to be understood, but a phenomenon to be lived. In its stark simplicity, it invites a radical confrontation with the act of seeing itself.
Fakewhale editorial team, 2025
