Born in Kazakhstan in 1983, Alexander Dik lives and works in Berlin. Coming from a Volga German family deported to Kazakhstan during the Second World War, Dik moved to Germany with his family in 1992 and grew up in Berlin-Marzahn. His experiences of migration, fractured identity, physical labour, and over a decade of competitive Taekwondo continue to inform the physicality and intensity of his artistic practice.
Dik began his formal artistic education at the age of 35 and completed his Master’s degree in 2024, when he was also appointed a master student of Andreas Amrhein. His expressive visual language draws on German Neo-Expressionism and was shaped through his encounters with artists including Ute Wöllmann, Norbert Bisky, Jonas Burgert, and Christopher Lehmpfuhl.
Working exclusively in oil, Dik paints directly on canvases placed on the floor, using his hands, feet, body weight, and spontaneous gestures. His large-scale portraits explore themes of power, consumerism, ambition, survival, outrage, and hope. His series “Big Eaters” marked a defining development in his practice, establishing a distinctive position within contemporary Expressionism. Alongside his paintings, Dik creates bronze sculptures that translate his visceral visual language into three-dimensional form.