PATRICK SIEGL

First published: September 2025

Patrick Siegl draws the monumental architecture and archaic landscapes of the Far East in such minute detail that true appreciation requires a magnifying glass

With around 70 works, Patrick Siegl has created an astonishingly extensive and diverse body of work since 2010. However, the number of works is only astonishing if you consider the artist’s mode of working. That some of his works require two years or more for their creation is the rule rather than the exception. This means two years of focusing and dwelling mentally on one single piece, suggesting a deep inner conviction about the artistic undertaking. Profound mental energy is needed to persist in this way, without a break, until the work’s completion.

Egypt 49 BC, 2021, coloured pencil over dry point engraving, 11.5 x 10 in. / 29.5 x 26 cm; Roland Wölfl Collection

While Siegl’s image-world and artistic method appeared eruptively, virtually fully developed in his early drawings, he has refined and enhanced them since starting to attend Atelier Augustinum, a supervised studio for outsider artists in a Munich suburb, in 2010. What had already been richly detailed and precise in the drawing now became microscopically so; what had previously delighted with the fineness and minuteness of line, now spellbinds the incredulous viewer.

The Demonic Underworld of Cappadocia, 2017, fineliner on paper, 28 x 20 in. / 70 x 50 cm; private collection

The graphic units are often so small that it seems they can only have been made with the aid of a magnifying glass. They have not. It is difficult to believe that it is possible to penetrate so deep into what is hidden in a world with the naked eye, with just a sharpened pencil or fineliner. Born in 1991 in Munich, Siegl began developing his art at an inclusive Montessori school. Going on to the Atelier, with just a few sketch pages from his school days, he suddenly found his creative voice.