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Tim White-Sobieski is an American multimedia artist and designer known for his innovative work in contemporary art, including light installations, video art, and large-scale sculptures. His projects blend modern technologies with conceptual storytelling, often transforming urban spaces and cultural landmarks. White-Sobieski's work spans disciplines like architecture, interior design, and public art, showcasing a distinctive style that integrates light and multimedia elements. He has exhibited internationally in museums and galleries and remains a prominent figure in both art and design for his ability to merge technology with artistic vision.
His art has been showcased in over 40 contemporary art museums worldwide. His films have screened at international festivals in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Madrid, Rome, Milan Locarno Hamburg and Berlin, while his installations have featured in biennales across Europe and beyond. His works are part of prestigious collections, including those of LVMH, UBS, and Kering Group. With studios in the USA, Germany, and Italy, White-Sobieski continues to work in art, architecture, films, fashion and design.
INSTALLATIONS
VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
LIGHT ART INSTALLATIONS
PRINTS DRAWINGS PHOTOGRAPHY
Installation Projects:
DECONSTRUCTED
ALPHA
LUX-FLUX
COLD FOREST
VISORD
MOVING PAINTINGS
LIGHT CURRENTS
NEW YORK CITY SUITE
Urban Reflections:
The New York City Suite
Gallery Description
The Urban Reflections series transforms the architectural essence of New York City into a harmonious dialogue between historical craftsmanship and contemporary design. Composed of metal frames arranged in chaotic yet deliberate geometrical configurations, the project reimagines the rigid structures of the urban environment as dynamic, living art forms.
Some frames are left bare, accentuating the stark beauty of the metal's industrial nature, while others are adorned with translucent acrylic films and rigid sheets, coated in printed stained-glass imagery. These stained-glass-like surfaces shimmer in hues of blue, yellow, and orange, evoking the meditative vibrancy of Renaissance cathedral windows. However, rather than depicting religious iconography, these modern stained-glass panels reflect the intricate geometry of New York City's buildings and the transient presence of its people.
Artistic Context:
This project pays homage to a lineage of geometric abstraction in art history. The bold structural order recalls the minimalism of Josef Albers' Homage to the Square series, while the layered complexity of translucent planes nods to Al Held’s exploration of spatial ambiguity. The intricate interplay of light and shadow evokes François Morellet's rhythmic grids, and the chaotic arrangements of lines and forms reimagine Piet Mondrian's disciplined compositions through a lens of urban vibrancy.
The stained-glass elements extend this dialogue further, drawing inspiration from Renaissance cathedral windows yet embodying a distinctly modern aesthetic. The reflective surfaces interact with the environment, capturing fleeting images of passersby—an ode to the ever-changing, collective spirit of New York.
Historical Parallels
The project resonates deeply with the traditions of geometric abstraction, bridging the past and present in a narrative of form and color. Its chaotic yet deliberate arrangements bring to mind the pioneering works of Piet Mondrian. While Mondrian sought harmony through strict Neoplastic ideals, these installations reinterpret his disciplined grids to embody the vibrant energy of New York City’s unpredictable rhythm.
The translucent panels, glowing in hues of blue, yellow, and orange, evoke the color theories of Josef Albers. Much like Albers’ exploration of perception through his Homage to the Square series, the interplay of light and transparency in this project creates depth and shifting visual intrigue, capturing the viewer’s attention and inviting contemplation.
The randomized placement of frames and the integration of contemporary materials bear a striking connection to François Morellet’s playful yet systematic approach to geometry. His ability to transform rigid structures into dynamic compositions finds a modern echo here, as these installations weave structural precision with urban spontaneity.
In their layering and spatial depth, the works also nod to the immersive qualities of Al Held’s abstract compositions. Held’s exploration of abstract space and his bold manipulation of depth are reimagined here through translucent materials that capture the city’s energy in every overlapping line and glowing hue.
Together, these historical influences intertwine, merging the structural with the human and the abstract with the real, reflecting the timelessness of geometry as both an artistic and cultural language.
“DECONSTRUCTED REALITY”
“CITIES OF THE WORLD” SERIES – LONDON
Photography and Multichannel Art Film Project
- Video loops: 8 minutes per channel, vertical video format
- Installation: 16-channel synchronized video with a soundtrack by the artist, utilizing 16-channel surround sound
- Initial release: Set of Blu-Ray disks and a media server array
- Museum exhibition format: 8K media servers with proprietary code and hardware (all technologies copyrighted by the artist)
- Photography series: 12 large-scale prints, 72 x 108 inches, encapsulated in silicone between aluminum plates and Diasec acrylic
Conceptual Overview
Deconstructed Reality (London) immerses viewers in a realm where “the real and the imaginary are confounded in the same operational totality,” evoking Jean Baudrillard’s reflections in The Hyper-realism of Simulation (1992). The artist constructs an aesthetic of ambiguity, blending perceptible and hypothetical imagery to destabilize traditional boundaries. In this work, London transforms into both a deceiving cityscape and a vast interior space, merging the tangible world with immaterial dimensions.
The piece explores themes of transition, departure, and arrival—concepts also central to earlier works such as Queen Mary (2004) and the Terminal Series. The artist views perception of reality as both a construction and a game, one that “deconstructs” during moments of intellectual or emotional crises. This postmodern series transcends art's traditional permanence, embracing multiplicity and anonymity. The video medium entraps audiences in a transformative experience, pushing the boundaries of disruptive avant-garde approaches.
One striking feature of the artist’s video work is its immediate eradication of viewer detachment. It invites personal involvement, immersing audiences in the beauty he creates. In works like Desire, Vertigo, On the Wing, Terminal Series, and Deconstructed Reality, time and space become unhinged. Deconstructed Reality (London) offers an aesthetic unity within the chaotic urban experience, yet paradoxically reveals that art doesn’t impose order but entwines itself with life's inherent contradictions. By suspending belief and disbelief, the work reframes reality as a series of discourses.
Thematic Exploration
The artist seeks to capture nostalgia for the present—a longing for a fleeting "now." This concept is spatially constrained within the surreal consciousness of the metropolis. In this experimental video, time becomes a paranormal construct rather than an architectural illusion. The imagery reflects a gaze destined to be obliterated, with each site, once fixed, figuratively effaced. Liberated from conventional constraints of sequence and narrative, the multi-channel and single-channel installations seem omnipresent, defying the limitations of time and space.
The work delves into the nebulous space between reality and fiction, crafting relics of fictive memory in an eternal psychic labyrinth. These sequences, drawn from subjective, incomplete, and ever-evolving codes of memory, are not yet crystallized into recollections. Instead, they reside in the ambiguous realm of unborn visions.
Visual and Psychological Layers
The video language mirrors the complexities of urban culture and the artist’s inner world. In Desire (2005), a self-portrait, the artist divided his face into two halves coexisting in different emotional realms, signifying duality and the deceptiveness of appearances. This exploration of intangibility redefines conventional portraiture. Similarly, Deconstructed Reality (London) conveys a sense of totality constructed from interrelated fragments. The apparent structure of reality emerges from invisible, intangible forces.
Through this intricate layering of time, space, and memory, the artist offers a hauntingly beautiful exploration of the boundaries between perception, imagination, and the constructed realities of urban life.
Deconstructed Cities-Deconstructed Reality
Project II
A large-scale photography and generative immersive video installation
This project includes:
36 large-scale photographs capturing megacities from around the world, including London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Shanghai, Dubai, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
16+ synchronized video channels, HD format
Computer-coded animation loops in color, with an approximate duration of 30 minutes per channel.
Native 16K resolution video format
Original soundtrack composed by the artist
IT | FR
LIGHT ART INSTALLATIONS
VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
PRINTS DRAWINGS PHOTOGRAPHY
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© TIM WHITE-SOBIESKI