Riess, born in 1970 in Tyrol, lives and works in Vienna, speaks trough his paintings, collages and films stories. In his pictures he creates associative narratives, enables the
comprehensibility of his artistic thought process, thwarted a sense-chronological analysis of processes of change one's own person, but transmit a lot of room for the viewer - for own interpretation as well as the spiritual continuation in each of us.

Riess is a collector, a collector of images. Countless pictures from magazines and brochures, newspapers and old books can be found in his trove. They are a source of inspiration and working material for making new drawings, paintings and collages that reveal his personal view of the world. In an artistic analysis, Riess edited and changed the imagery found in order to "put the reference to reality in question" in a self-determined way to look, as he himself emphasizes. Our reality is dominated by media-generated images, whether advertising subject or 'normal' photography, it usually seems to be required how we have something to see: a certain point of view is set to distinguish between foreground and background, above and below, a concrete meaning through signifiers suggests. Riess wants to counteract this by breaking common viewing patterns.

Forest motifs where diffuse light shines through between dark tree trunks.

excerpt: Tina Teufel, Günther Oberhollenzer (Thomas Riess)