Thilo Westermann is a contemporary artist who works mostly in reverse glass painting, photomontage and color pencil drawing. To create his reverse glass paintings, Westermann first covers the reverse of a glass plate with black paint and then uses a needle to etch the image, dot by dot, from the black surface. The varying density of the dots generates the illusion of space, depth, and shading. In a third phase, he covers the motif with white paint to make the countless dots visible on the front of the glass plate.

When the reverse glass painting is finished, Westermann has it scanned, enlarged six times the original size, and printed only once as a unique print. In the enlarged version, the dots making up the image become apparent, revealing the artist’s gesture and skill.

To the end of creating his photomontages, Westermann documents particular real-life situations in a large number of close-ups, from which he later recreates the atmosphere as he experienced it in situ. During the montage, new ideas, feelings, and the results of his research merge with the images. Westermann often also incorporates motifs from his reverse glass paintings and color pencil drawings, to either suggest the context of their creation or to pursue his research on social, artistic, historical, or political topics.