Contemporary painter Daniel Domig, known for his artwork focusing on interpersonal relationships and the human body, offers a candid look into how modern artists navigate the challenges of maintaining their creative integrity while supporting their families. The award-winning artist, whose works are featured in prestigious collections including Essl, Leopold, Galerie Taxis Palais, and AMC Collezione Coppola, spoke with Plough editor Katharina Thonhauser about the realities of being a professional artist in today's world.
Born in Canada to an American family therapist and an Austrian mountain farmer, Domig now lives in Vienna with his wife and four children. His journey into art began at age nine when a young student living with his family gave him paints and brushes for his birthday. "I knew even as a child: This is who I am," Domig recalls. "I didn't say I wanted to be a painter. Something just clicked for me, and from that day on, I just knew that's what I wanted to do."
Unlike many children who dream of becoming firefighters or police officers, Domig's artistic identity formed early and definitively. As a teenager, he worked through art history by copying paintings from books and set up a studio in his family's basement. "For me, being a painter wasn't an end goal, but I told myself that I had already become one," he explains. "This naivety and idealism led me to simply go through with it."
The financial reality of being a visual artist presents unique challenges that distinguish it from other creative professions. "A visual artist only earns money by selling his work," Domig explains. "When I do international exhibitions, the galleries cover the fixed costs, but I only earn an income when a piece is actually sold." This differs significantly from musicians who receive guaranteed fees per concert, making the visual arts a particularly uncertain field financially.
Domig invests heavily in the unknown, spending considerable time organizing exhibitions and money on materials without any guarantee of return. "I have to hope that somewhere, people will be moved enough by my work that they want to support it," he says. Both he and his wife are self-employed – she works as a marriage and family therapist – creating a household where financial uncertainty is doubled but manageable through careful planning and mutual support.
Despite the financial pressures, Domig maintains strict artistic integrity by refusing commissioned work. "What I do is really very pure work, free from 'I do this because I get paid for it,'" he states. This purity creates its own challenges, as he must justify spending countless hours creating art that nobody specifically requested or promised to purchase. The result is "a very special relationship with artistic work, because there is no impetus for it except the dialogue with the material itself."
For Domig, the concept of work extends far beyond mere financial necessity. Growing up with self-employed parents who approached their marriage and family counseling practice with dedication, he learned that "work is good in itself because it is dedicated to the material, and attempts to lovingly shape this raw material to create something more original and more meaningful than it was before." His father, who also did crafting and repair work, served as a role model for approaching every activity with love and dedication.
As a Christian, Domig views his artistic work as participating in a divine creative process. "I see my relationship to work as a response to the reality that I am a creature in a created world and that I am, so to speak, a co-creator in a process of healing, of making whole, of changing, and of transforming toward more positive forms," he explains. This perspective challenges society's typical question of "What's in it for me?" which he sees as rooted in commercial-capitalist thinking.
Domig's paintings are distinctly process-oriented, meaning there's no pre-existing image or concept that he then implements on canvas. "This surprises many people, because generally, people assume that a visual artist has a statement or an idea and then uses their medium to express it," he notes. Instead, his painting process includes a built-in reflective moment that creates dialogue with viewers and society.
Thematically, his work centers on relationships, particularly interpersonal ones. The figures in his paintings appear to be growing, looking as if something is missing or yet to come. "They sometimes give the impression that the works are not even finished, which is, of course, technically correct, because every completion of a painting is only an individual decision by the painter to stop painting," Domig explains. This reflects his Christian belief in viewing people "not as finished beings but beings capable of transformation."
The daily reality of being an artist with four children requires careful time management and prioritization. Domig rises very early and maintains a fixed studio workspace. "The most difficult hurdle is getting everything else done so that I can spend as much time as possible in the studio on a regular basis," he says. His days involve handling practical tasks like emails, packing, and errands before the actual artistic work can begin.
"The actual artistic work begins when there is nothing left to do," Domig explains. He compares himself to a gardener who can only create conditions for growth but cannot force anything to grow. "I can keep the soil fertile and make sure there is enough moisture and not too many stones. And then I can only wait. The sun does all the work with the seeds he planted."
Domig sees his art's value to society as an invitation for people to put themselves in a similar position of openness and receptivity. He draws parallels between viewing art and prayer, both involving a special relationship with something greater than oneself. Citing Paul Klee, he believes art is "not about depicting something you see but about seeing in the first place." The encounter with art doesn't end when leaving a museum but begins there, as people notice reflections in windows differently or become more aware of birds chirping.
The art market presents its own complications for Domig, who expresses sadness about art becoming "a huge market, where often absurd sums are involved, and, I believe, a lot of money is also laundered." He would prefer an art scene where artists receive different forms of support that don't force them to participate in market dynamics. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that "both sellers and buyers are always human beings" seeking genuine connections and relationships.
Regarding his children's view of his work, Domig notes they are "disinterested in a healthy way" because they don't know any different. Initially, this concerned him, but he came to realize it's similar to other parents who do their work well so they can come home and fulfill their parenting role effectively.
The work-life balance remains challenging for Domig, who fears he might not excel at either painting or parenting because he's trying to do both. "I hope my kids will forgive me and appreciate the balance I tried to maintain," he says. However, this tension has influenced his art – since having children, more heads, arms, and feet have appeared in his work. He believes people who feel torn between different responsibilities can find understanding in his stretched and knotted figures, which demonstrate that despite chaos, "there is incredible beauty woven into these entanglements."
