HOLDING WHAT CANNOT BE HELD
Marseille, April 2026
For CONSTANTIN NITSCHE, painting is an act of pursuit: a sustained attempt to grasp something that remains perpetually beyond reach. His latest exhibition at the Xavier Hufkens gallery in Brussels, Les mains, borrows its emotional gravity from Franz Kafka, whose writings have long informed the German painter's understanding of longing, ambiguity, and the impossibility of completion.
Working from his studio in Marseille, Nitsche creates paintings that hover between revelation and concealment, beauty and unease, intimacy and fiction. Across self-portraits, recurring motifs, and meticulously observed fragments of everyday life, his work embraces uncertainty rather than resolution.
Here, Nitsche reflects on the strange autonomy of paintings, childhood encounters with Pinocchio and fairy tales, as well as the formative influence of Kafka.
In the text you shared with me prior to our conversation regarding your work, you referenced a quote from Franz Kafka's letters to his friend, Milena [Jesenká]. He writes about not being able to hold enough of someone, not being able to embrace them completely. What was it about that sentiment that resonated with this body of work?
I think the idea of trying to hold something and never really achieving it is very much like the process of painting. At least that's what it feels like to me. There's something sad about it, but also something very beautiful. As a painter, I feel like I'm always trying to reach something, but I know I'll never fully get there. Sometimes I come very close, and that's where the satisfaction comes from. You're this close, and then it's like sand in your hand – you try to hold onto it, but it slips away.
You're striving for something that never feels complete.
Exactly. Reality is probably the only thing that's complete. As a painter, you're always trying to reproduce what's around you. Even as an abstract painter, you're trying to create something that isn't there yet. Whatever you make never quite lives up to what you imagined or wished it could be. I don't really have an answer to why this keeps me going. It's just something I can't wrap my head around. Kafka's quote gets very close to that feeling, and that's why I chose it as a starting point for the exhibition.
Following that, how do you know when a painting is finished?
That's one of the biggest questions for a painter. What I dislike most is when something is simply "good enough." Sometimes a painting reaches a point where everyone would be happy with it. You could send it out, and nobody would complain. But I would rather have complete chaos, or something that feels unresolved, because that somehow acknowledges that the work can never truly be completed. If I feel that there's something alive in a painting, that's usually when I have to stop myself. I don't know that it's finished – I just know that I'll regret going further. That's when I put it aside.
You always think, "Maybe I could add this eyelash," or "Maybe I could change this reflection." At some point, you have to tell yourself: this isn't about you. It's about the painting. Don't turn it into an ego trip. Don't try to prove how skilled you are. I've learned to leave things alone. I'll put a painting away for a few days or a few weeks, then pull it out again. Usually, I look at it and think, "No, it's fine. Don't touch it anymore.”
Before you begin a painting, do you already know what it will look like?
I think I know what it's going to look like in the end, but it's never what I imagined on day one. By day 300, it's usually much better than what I originally had in mind because it has become its own thing. It starts operating according to its own rules. In the end, I often feel like I'm just the monkey holding the brush. My job is simply to read what the painting needs. It's humbling, but it's a good feeling. If I felt completely in control of everything, I wouldn't be comfortable.
You mentioned that Kafka has been important to you for a long time. What keeps drawing you back to his writing?
I wasn't a particularly good student, but when we started reading Kafka at school, I became obsessed. What fascinates me is the way he constantly gives you something and immediately takes it away. He'll write that somebody screamed – but so quietly that nobody heard them. Or that the weather was nice, but only just bad enough that you knew rain was coming. You're constantly unsure whether what you're reading is good or bad. Every sentence keeps you on your toes.
And then there's Kafka himself. He worked in an office, came from a strict family, and had Max Brod collecting and preserving his writing because otherwise he would have thrown it away. He's such an interesting character, this normcore flamboyant person in a way.
One of the works in the exhibition is a self-portrait featuring the Pinocchio motif. Can you tell me about that painting?
I've painted a couple of self-portraits throughout my life because they're such a classical painter's subject. They're also difficult. If you paint yourself too favourably, that's a problem. If you paint yourself too ugly, that's a problem too. This painting shows me wearing a wooden Pinocchio nose and an oversized felt hat. The whole thing makes me look slightly like a conman. I like the idea of presenting the painter as someone you perhaps shouldn't entirely trust.
Pinocchio was a story that always made me uncomfortable as a child. My mother used to tell me she could tell when I was lying because my nose would grow. So that image stayed with me. I made many self-portraits with long noses as a student. I think there's also a connection between Pinocchio and painting. A painter creates fiction. In a sense, there's something of the liar in both. The nose becomes a way of hiding as much as revealing. I'm showing myself, but I'm also disguising myself.
Pinocchio is one of those children's stories with a surprisingly dark undercurrent. Do you think there's a similar darkness in your own work?
Absolutely. I can smile, make jokes, be enjoyable company – but I think I also have quite a melancholic side. I'm concerned about a lot of things. I worry. And that always finds its way into the paintings. That's how life feels to me. You see all these things and try to keep going.
I think there's always something underneath my paintings that can be quite dark. There's often something banal too – a plastic toy, a cheap object, something artificial. Sometimes there's even something slightly trashy about them. But I think beauty needs sadness. I wouldn't wish that on my children – I want them to be happy – but I do think that sadness can make things beautiful.
The fairy tales I grew up with certainly contributed to that. German stories can be incredibly brutal. Children get eaten. People die in fires. You learn very early that every action seems to carry consequences. Even though my family wasn't religious, growing up in Germany meant absorbing a lot of Christian thinking. There's always the feeling that you'll somehow have to pay the price.
Are there works in this exhibition that feel particularly new or experimental for you?
I'm very slow when it comes to introducing new motifs. What I really love is returning to things I've already painted. It feels like revisiting places. I'm not ready to let them go.
The Pinocchio painting is definitely something new because it's more staged than my usual work. I'm consciously disguising myself. There are other works where I've approached familiar subjects differently, but the changes are small. They're baby steps. Nothing dramatic. Everything still comes from the same surroundings and the same world. I'm not interested in sudden transformations. The development is much more gradual than that.
You've lived in Marseille for seven years now. What first brought you there?
My wife and I moved here when I wasn't selling work. We had very little money and heard that Marseille was affordable. We thought: let's be broke somewhere beautiful. You can go to the beach for free. You can sit in the sun. A coffee costs less than it does in Berlin.
At that point, I'd only sold two paintings. The money from those sales paid for the move. We basically decided to gamble on ourselves. The reason we've stayed is simple: the light is incredible. The plants are incredible. Coming from Germany, all of it felt exotic. The only thing I really miss is birch trees. My grandmother loved them. She grew up in Łódź in Poland and later planted one when she moved to Germany because it reminded her of home. To me, they're the most beautiful trees. Everything else is better here. [Laughs]
Speaking of your grandmother, she was a painter herself.
She was. And she was tough. I made my first oil painting with her when I was three or four years old. She looked at it from the corner of her eye while smoking a cigarette with a long black holder. Later, she told my mother and aunt that the boy had no patience.
But she was also incredible. She made everything herself. She sewed her own clothes. She painted. She was a very elegant woman. She inspired me enormously, but she also discouraged me. She always told me that painting wasn’t something you could learn – you either had it or you didn’t.
Only after she died did I apply to art school. The funny thing is, I’m convinced she would dislike my paintings today. She’d walk into one of my exhibitions and immediately ask why I paint everything so large. She’d tell me to make them smaller. [Laughs]
Constantin Nitsche’s show Les mains is on view at Xavier Hufkens in Brussels from 27th of August to 31st of October, 2026.
Interview by Martin Onufrowicz
Photography by Adrien Girardin