The work of Thomas Deyles, at once dormant and pulsating, makes it clear how much the artist distinguishes himself from the typical concrete artists, but also from his spiritual colleagues. The painter does not draw his inspiration from esotericism. In general, factual or sensual references (such as a delightfully iridescent surface of an insect, a certain music especially from classical music and jazz, etc.) play an important role in the work. As a synesthete, Deyle always associates music with specific colors. Just as sound takes place in time and, moreover, in immaterial space, Deyle sees color as having a similar effect. They are moods and physical references that resist an overly ethereal spirituality. Nevertheless, color and light are in symbiosis with each other, influenced by ZEN philosophy - shaped by childhood memories: As the son of a musician with a professorship in Tokyo, Thomas Deyle grew up in Japan, where he perceived the rock gardens there early on in their "excitement in tranquility." It is from here that, in part, the meditative moment necessary to roll hundreds, even up to a thousand layers of highly diluted paint, layer by layer, onto the Plexiglas sheet can be derived. Until Deyle developed this technique, which suited him, he first painted hyperrealistic pictures, then moved from abstract-expressive works in admiration of Willem de Kooning, Marc Rothko and others to painting over glass, which, however, always left the hanging visible. It was only with Plexiglas that he was able to attach spacers behind the glass that keep the work almost invisibly at a distance from the wall, giving the impression that the paint is floating in space - still and, when viewed for a longer time, in a moving dynamic. This experience is only immediately perceptible: Those who move on too quickly cannot take in the subjective process of perceptual changes, and those who photograph these works miss out on the magic of color's presence in retrospect.