Interview with: Joas Nebe
November 2025
Welcome Joas, first tell us about your background and why you chose to pursue this career.
Do you remember the first artwork that stirred something inside you?
I have a degree in Psychology and Media Studies from the University of Hamburg. Alongside my studies, I attended a private art school in Hamburg, the Malschule Winterstraße, where I acquired traditional technical skills. After that, there was a phase in the mid to late 1990s during which I painted large egg tempera images on burlap. Two of these can be seen in the auditorium of the Harbor Theatre in Hamburg and are part of the Joop van den Ende Collection . Of course, I don’t remember the first artwork that inspired me. What I can say is that my fascination with art began with my first visits to a museum. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was particularly impressive.
Does spirituality or a connection to something larger than yourself influence your creative process?
It depends on the definition of spirituality. If you mean spirituality as a non-rationally explainable connection or process, such as Qi Gong in Chinese healing practices, I would say that I am spiritual. The longer I live and work, the more the flow of energy comes to the forefront. This energy is related to the creative process. Working on a piece is, for me, largely connected to a deep immersion in myself, a process that is typically referred to as meditation. While working, I consciously let go of everyday worries and everything around me and focus entirely on the task. I deliberately choose a time frame that allows me to retreat from the outside world, ensuring that there are no disturbances. Once I achieve that flow of energy, I know before the artwork is finished that I am succeeding. This is particularly relieving when working on extensive and tiring stop-motion films.
Do you believe an artist's passion is something destined or a conscious choice?
There are artists who have many talents, one of which is to create art. Then there are people who are born as artists. The latter are often referred to as "artist-artists," meaning artists who inspire other artists.
How important is it for viewers to understand the intended message of your work? Does ambiguity add value, or do you seek clarity in your expression?
Art is not graphic design. Artists should not try to sell a product. It is advertising agencies, AI, or social media platforms that sell products. However, it is also not the task of the artist to produce ambiguity at all costs. An artist should always know what they are doing and what message they want to convey. But this knowledge should not always dictate the form of the artwork. A good piece of art always contains ambiguous elements.
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly infiltrating creative fields. Do you see Artificial Intelligence as a threat, a tool, or a collaborator in the art world?
As long as the legal system has not decided who the author of a work of art created with AI is, the topic remains taboo for serious artists. I generally believe that artists can use AI as a tool within certain limits, just as they have used graphic software or film editing software since the computer age. However, the legal framework worldwide is completely unclear, and therefore, I would not create a work of art using AI at this time.
List five core themes or messages you aim to convey through your art.
The overarching theme of my art is the ability/inability to understand one another, that is, communication. I tend to be critical and believe that there is always a residue of misunderstanding in every form of communication—what is referred to in statistics as measurement error, or "s." Typically, the measurement error is around 2%, and anyone who has engaged with statistics knows that even a 1% measurement error implies no certainty. For this reason, I believe that interpersonal communication should always be approached with utmost caution, as the measurement error and its influence on the outcome are difficult to assess in any case. The greater the measurement error/uncertainty or the error in understanding, the more critical the communication becomes.
We are at the end of this short interview, would you like to add something about your artistic research?
How did you find the collaboration with our gallery?
I have just published an article about my work with AI in the Anima Mundi Academia Art Magazine, in which I describe how I have guided AI to generate images based on certain female clichés (the vamp, the trad wife, etc.). In addition, I am collaborating with the Vedica Art Gallery on presenting my video works both on the gallery's YouTube channel and in upcoming exhibitions. My last solo exhibition at the Vedica Art Gallery in Mumbai was dedicated to the female nude in the post-materialist world. We showcased drawings on anatomy book pages that depicted female nudes consisting only of black lines and colorful ink. In the recent group exhibition at the Vedica Art Gallery in Paris, paper collages on the theme "The Warrior Empath“ are exhibited, a term from Jungian psychology that represents the antidote to the narcissist. Here, I have displayed works on pages from an old encyclopedia.