Noah Thomalla was born in Stuttgart, Germany and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. His work varies between sculpture, painting, and installation, inspired by theology, modernism, and technology. He has spent several cumulative years between Minneapolis, Chicago, and Berlin, as well as a semester studying at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. Noah is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree from Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
"My art explores the body’s desire to be controlled. Through painting, sculpture, and installation, I meditate on discipline, punishment, and abjection. My work exposes itself through signs, such as insignia, code, and text.
In my material investigations, I am drawn to contrast: muted colors against bold; industrial against organic; harshness against delicacy. I work often with fur, leather, metal, sand, concrete, and technology, such as digital interfaces and microcontrollers. I classify my sculptures as contraptions or artifacts, working in tandem with signs and obfuscated language to invoke narratives about the body and the self.
I’m interested in how ideas of control and abjection operate in conjunction with power, violence, and eros: structures of war; corporal punishment; animal states. This can be seen, for example, through the weaving interconnections in my fiber and technological work, my use of animal imagery and product, and my inclination towards kinetic and temporal art, such as manufacturing a scent or programming a moving creature. I am inspired by theology, brutalism, and space."