The German artist Nikolaus List is best known for his paintings, drawings, sculptures and computer animations featuring calm, mystical, playful, atmospheric landscapes. They open up dream worlds between stylised nature and manicured gardens and parklands, interwoven with of surrealism and humour.

List grew up in Frankfurt-am-Main, studied painting at the Frankfurt Städelschule under Thomas Bayerle, Peter Kogler and Christa Näher, and has been exhibiting since 1995. His works have been shown in solo exhibitions at the Goethe Institutes in Brussels and Rotterdam as well as at the Bielefeld Art Association and the Göttingen Art Association. His computer animations have been shown at the 3rd International ExtraShortFilm Festival in Novosibirsk and at the Galerie Meyer Riegger in Karlsruhe. His illustrated alphabet books, Analphabetismus, are among his rare forays into more figurative art.

Between 2006 and 2013 he was in charge of the second year of studies in the painting class and was a lecturer for painting at the Weissensee School of Art, and since 2016 he has been teaching painting at the independent art school Berlin Art Institute.

List's pictures address the relationship between nature and artificiality. The world created by humans is confronted with the eternally natural, the perception of space alternating between central perspective and isometry. Through the rhythmical structure of his pictures, foreground and background are abolished, the effect reinforced by the often dissonant choice of colours, making List‘s art appear decidedly anti-sublime. In his own words, he demonstrates ‘what remains when every transcendent superstructure in art has been torn down, seen through the exploration of bizarre, deserted, distant gardens.’