Sebastian Wandl AKA Wandal - Contemporary Artist
When art means freedom
Sebastian Wandl, also known as Wandal, is a contemporary artist from Munich whose work reflects curiosity, emotional depth, and a love of storytelling. As soon as you speak with Wandal, it is instantly obvious that he is an optimistic free spirit. When he starts to talk about his artistic evolution, it becomes evident that his path is shaped by a good portion of luck and a whole lot of hard work. His contemporary urban art tells stories of our time and it reflects his curiosity and accurate observation skills. It is obvious that he found his artistic medium within paintings and drawings as well as painting murals around the world. Sebastian Wandl is very aware that art means more labor behind the scenes than most viewers will acknowledge in the end. Thus, he fills a vast number of sketchbooks until topics start to evolve that can be used for future works, murals and other works of his art.
Today, Sebastian’s work extends beyond murals and canvas originals — it’s now available as fine art prints, making his signature style accessible to a wider audience and bringing contemporary portraiture into everyday spaces.
The background of his evolution is being a painter and mural artist
Similar to biographies of other contemporary artists, Sebastian showed early on an interest for forms, colors and creativity, however, this passion was accompanied at the same time by doubts and fears of financial stability. His countless travels are feeding him with new ideas, which lead to new topics. On these journeys his sketchbook is a constant companion where he sketches people with quick lines or remembers situations that might lead to new pieces and in creating new murals in Munich / Berlin or around the globe.
Years later he took his courage towards his dream and studied art in Munich. Once there, he focused on illustration and painting reaching far beyond Munich city walls. His teachers recognized his talent in visual storytelling and assigned him with commission work early on – an important factor that encouraged him to continue the artistic path and develop his own artistic language.
This rather brave artistic steps paid off and the artistic career was worth every step he took, in the meanwhile Sebastian Wandl has exhibited in numerous galleries and art fairs and was commissioned by et al. LEGO, BMW Mini, Red Bull, Campari, ABSOLUT Vodka, Toy Room London or Glamour.
Portraits as character studies
When you see Sebastian Wandl’s works it is apparent that he focused his education on illustration. His portrait series do have in common that they are highly narrative, even though they just come to live with just a few lines. In the faces of the women these lines translate into life lines and do reveal a lot about the depicted character. The loose strokes enables an immense aliveness within the works.
The lines are always precisely set and are able to oscillate between photorealism and expressive freedom. The artist is particularly known for his female portraits: hauntingly beautiful sirens in surreal worlds of color. What do this images tell us about the tension between beauty and our seemingly insatiable longing for perfection? How do these women in this painting withstand the gap between beauty and unfinished abstraction? What do these images tell us about beauty and which multitudes does this notion contain?
The portraits of Sebastian Wandl are able to talk about our delusion with aestheticization, our need for instant gratification through fast likes and the bitter aftertaste that comes with perfection.
EDUCATION
2011 Diploma Academy Free Art Workshop Munich 1,0
2012 Figure / nude drawing Freie Kunstwerkstatt
COLLECTIONS
Straat Museum
Muca Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (Munich)
Urban Nation Museum of Urban Art (Berlin)