I am a very curious person by nature who enjoys exploring different materials and ways of creating artwork. I have a hard time understanding borders and where one medium or discipline stops and another begins. I am a painter, photographer, philosopher, and poet. However, to me these things are not separate: the lines between them are blurred and blended. Art gives me the means to convey myself without limits, labels, or concrete divides.

I learn through the process. Creating is one of the only times in my daily life that I am able to stop thinking. My artwork is created through an intuitive process, where ideas develop as I go, with very little planning beforehand. When I’m in the darkroom and allowing the light to paint the image onto paper, I feel as if I’m just the guide, watching the image unfold on its own. Painting, as a process, is similar to me. It’s a way of allowing my innermost feelings to shine through into the world and out from my deep subconscious. Writing poetry continues in this vein, and I often realize that my poems have truths I didn’t know until they were out on the page. This is a spiritual experience and I feel like everyone is capable of having these experiences as well. I invite others to explore their intuition while they create.

Another part of my artistic process is being playful. My animated music video became a big act of play as I explored an idea, with no certainty that it would resolve the way I wanted it to. Through the process of making this work, I played with the technology on my phone to create the movie. I played with different settings and different amounts of photos. Photography, and image-making, in general, is also very playful for me. I often find myself laughing as I take hundreds of shots, all in different ways. I use manual settings because I love the process of constant trial and error.

My dream is for each person to have a unique spiritual and philosophical experience with my artwork. My poems, photography, and paintings are only a starting point; hopefully, they will stretch out further and further away from me and impact others. Ask questions. Explore it in your own way.

Theo von Weiss is an illustrator based in La Crosse, Wisconsin. They grew up in the woods of northern Massachusetts and moved to Wisconsin when they were 14. In 2018 they completely a semester studying photography, painting and figure drawing at the Aegean Center for the Fine Arts. This involved spending one month in Pistoia, Italy and two months living in Paros, Greece. Theo holds a degree in philosophy and oil painting from St. Catherine University.