Tilmann Zahn, born in 1966 in Osnabrück, lives and works in Basel, is looking places that others avoid: The shabby and inhospitable backs of the glittery world of consumption.
His ways are leading to freight stations, industrials plants, loading areas for trucks.
To places where goods are produced and where goods are transshipped, wholesale and in containers, which adheres to the dirt of travel, the sweat of hard work.
The technique of his work, the tearing of the paper, is for Zahn part of a complex labor process, which he subjects the material to: granular, unprimed paper which is bathed in diluted oil to process it with graphite later on.

Tilmann Zahn deals with the phenomenon of transience, he is fascinated by the processes of emergence and decaying. That even seemingly permanent materials such as Iron, in the course of time, decompose into its constituents.

The shapes, that Zahn extracts by tearing the paper, reflects the fascination. They are abstract, but often evoke association with objects and motifs the artist encountered with on his wanderings through the industrial area and outlying areas of human civilization. They remind us of machine parts or complex architectural structures - Finds or scaffold-like formation, give an idea of its original function only more vague their frayed edges and patina and suggest the metamorphosis to a new.