Dylan Solomon Kraus was born in Ohio in 1987 and lives and works between Berlin and New York. His paintings combine rich colour, symbolic imagery and layered surfaces to create dreamlike environments that move between the cosmic, the mythic and the psychological.
Kraus draws on a wide range of references, from Der Blaue Reiter and early modernist spirituality to fables, the occult and ancient systems of representation. Recurring motifs such as moons, crows, flooded cities, clocks, trees and glyph-like signs appear as fragments of a private cosmology. His paintings often feel both archaic and futuristic, as though recording images from a world after human presence.
The surfaces are built through multiple layers of oil paint, which the artist scrapes, incises and peels back to reveal underlying colours and forms. This process gives the works a tactile, almost archaeological quality: symbols emerge like scars, traces or messages from beneath the surface. Despite their mysterious atmosphere, the paintings often convey a striking calm, creating moments of slow, celestial reverie.
Kraus received his BFA from Cooper Union, New York. He has held solo exhibitions at Almine Rech, New York and London; Peres Projects, Berlin, Seoul and Milan; Mamoth, London; and Entrance, New York. His work has also been included in group exhibitions at Jack Hanley Gallery, Kasmin Gallery, The Fireplace Project and other spaces in New York and internationally.