Elizabeth: During my recent residency at the amazing and wonderful Virginia Center for the Creative Arts—VCCA—I met so many extraordinary artists, writers, and composers. I had a chance to interview two VCCA visual artist Fellows in early fall 2025.
The remarkably talented, young painter and video artist, Dominik Gegaj from Saltzburg, Austria, visited DC stayed with us for a night on his way to New York and then back to Europe and on to a life in Paris.
Happily, another VCCA Visual Artist Fellow, Veronica Barker-Barzel, and her partner, Tom Kelly, came into DC during Dominik’s visit and we all walked around the National Mall and visited several museums.
In my newbie attempt to audio record our walking conversations—a la “person on the street”—I recorded our chats on a hand-held recorder.
Alas, I am no audio engineer, and I did not factor in the sound of the wind, and it was a very windy day. So, unfortunately, the audio quality of our recorded chats was unbearable. My apologies!
But we did have lively conversations with both these accomplished artists--which we were able to transcribe--so we’re keen to share them with you in written form, illustrated with images of them and their artworks, and including excerpts from their websites and summations of off-mic conversations.
And so, with more deep thanks to Dominik and Veronica for their time, collegiality and patience, we’re delighted to share edited transcripts of our conversations with them. We urge you to check out their respective websites, and maybe even buy their work!
INTERVIEW WITH DOMINIK GEGAJ
Vase of Paradise, 56 cm x 114 cm, 2025
Art Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, US
Readers will quickly note that I didn’t know much about Dominik prior to our recorded conversation. I only knew he was an incredibly talented and focused young visual artist who came to VCCA through an international exchange program. Here’s the conversation, with other text added at the end.
Elizabeth: So, Dominik, here we are, walking around the National Mall in Washington, DC. Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you come, your work, etc.
Dominik: So, I was here [in the USA, at VCCA] for a month already. I’m from Salzburg, Austria. My parents are both from Kosovo, Albania, and I grew up in my little town in Salzburg, which is known because of Mozart or the Sound of Music. I work as a visual artist, specifically watercolor. And have different ways of capturing emotions in watercolor, like capturing the persistence of my thoughts in the flows and ways I apply the brush strokes.
I first got to the US because of the International. Residency Exchange that my hometown does, the Salzburg Bergensien.
So I got the opportunity to work at VCCA, the Virginia Center for the Creative Artst for a month. And here I am now in Washington for a mid-stop because I’m also traveling to New York.
Blue Insanity, 2023, Series
Elizabeth: Dominik, your work is multifaceted. I would call you a multi- multimedia, multidisciplinary artist. You use, among other media, video, music, and animation.
So walk us [00:02:00] through your process, how you got there, what the inspirations are, and what some of the design elements are.
Dominick: When I was twelve years old, I was very in love with painting watercolor. It just always was something that fascinates me. How it dries, how different effects can be created, just the way you let it dry. At the same time, I was very much into digital media. So I used to do--back in the days--YouTube videos and lots of different skits with my camera.
Over time, I used to upload my works on social media when the short video format became popular. I tried to make use of that and create my own artistic approach. So that was my first real multidisciplinary outreach with my work where I [00:03:00] presented my watercolor in different ways, showing the process and then further evolving into animations, and then also directing my own video projects based on the watercolor scheme.
Elizabeth: Yes, the one that I saw is shot in a beautiful, pristine, white space with a beautiful dancer moving to a beautiful piece of music, and these very fluid blue paint swirls dancing around, synchronized with the music and the movement. That’s how I would describe it. Can you give us your description of it?
Click here to view this video: Rotating Head, 2024, Series
Dominick: It sums it up pretty neatly, I would say. Generally my work is a very liminal world. I would say everything is based on my vision of pure aesthetic and beauty. And in a way I want to create for the viewer an immersive experience where they can [00:04:00] dive into my blue work. And so yeah, my work becomes a dialogue between the viewer and me, the artist with my watercolor.
Elizabeth: So let’s talk about the animation itself. What comes first? Is it the dancer, the physical space, the location? Or is it the dancer, then the music, and then presumably you add the animated motion of the paint moving after you have a kind of complete shot? Is that correct?
Dominick: Exactly. I would also say the idea of it--it’s more like a cluster of different thoughts I have of different people I know.
So whenever there is an opportunity, I try to make use of that and connect it with my work. So it creates this beautiful harmony where watercolor can be not only on paper, but on different types of mediums with different people.
Elizabeth: Fantastic. We are down [00:05:00] at the National Mall and we’re walking by a saxophonist, so we’re gonna have a little saxophone interlude here.
Elizabeth: You’re an extremely young artist. This is me, the old person speaking to you, the very young artist. But you have made quite a name for yourself in social media in the virtual world. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be on different social media platforms and what that experience of going vital has been.
Click here to view this video: A Fool, 2024
Performance, Videography, and Edit by Dominik Gegaj
Music: “Flowers R. Blooming“ by Peter Cat Recording Co.
Dominick: Yes. So previously, as I mentioned, I used to progress from my watercolor paintings into short format videos and around [00:06:00] 2022, I think it was in October, there was this one art process that I uploaded on Instagram. And it went super viral. It just reached thousands and thousands of likes in the very first few minutes.
And so it just kept progressing. I think it has now around 14 million views. And that was my kickstart to realize what I was capable of doing with my work. And I wouldn’t say that that reach to the audience changed my work in a way, but it definitely changed the way I perceived my progress, my progression with my art that I want to do.
Click here to view this beautiful video: Pure Love, 2025
Direction, Videography and Animation by Dominik Gegaj
Performance by Julia Hirner
Music: “Pure Love” by Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross
So that was a big help to really expose myself to the community. And since then it has been a very stable progress with my videos. So that is the current situation, how people want to perceive work is very different from back then.
Elizabeth: You say back then, but how long ago was back [00:07:00] then?
Dominick: I would say, before social media became a thing, the art world was very different--where you had to work with galleries in order to have a name, at least that was the most known route to take.
But nowadays with social media, you can build your own, like gallery. I would say it depends on how you market yourself. So there’s this whole new thing that is rising up in the art world.
Elizabeth: So you are really an example of someone who creates the work with all the artistry and craft that the artist brings to their work.
But then you put it out, as you said on social media, and it catches fire. And so you have quite a following, and from that following, you have actual patrons, actual [00:08:00] buyers of your actual artwork.
You work both in video and mixed media or multimedia, but you also work two dimensionally on canvas or on paper. And the works that you created are collected by art connoisseurs in the US and abroad.
Click here to view this video: Surrounding, 2023
Animation by Dominik Gegaj
Music: “Recovery” by Rival Consoles
*The animation won the 2023 Digital City Lights Award in Salzburg, Austria, and was displayed throughout the city in August.
Let’s talk about that experience of leapfrogging over the conventional gatekeepers of the art world. Have you had any kind of blow back or conversations about not following the old way? What have those conversations been like?
Dominick: I think for many people it was a sense of curiosity there, how it is even possible to have such a reach in such a short amount of time. And to be honest with you, for most of it, I don’t even have an answer why some things become [00:09:00] successful and some don’t. What sticks to me, though, is this persistence of continuity and just innovation.
What I’ve experienced with--especially among the younger artists who are also mainly doing it on social media--is they see the [social media] views as their level of quality of their art, which I think is not inherently true. So I try to be very humble with my work ‘cause-- I think of myself--still at the very beginning of my work. And I’m learning every day about, let’s say the older generation, how they do their work.
So that’s why, for example, I applied for many residencies, ‘cause I want to be exposed to a different world rather than just the online, fast-paced type guys we have there.
Elizabeth: That’s so interesting. So what I’m hearing you say is that you were also working on your studio art skills--or what [00:10:00] used to be called studio art skills--which are, the techniques of the actual art making of drawing and painting and design and all the principles and elements of design and all of those building blocks of the visual artist’s process.
So you are, if I understand correctly, you were a university student back in Austria, right?
Dominick: No.
Blossom Blue, 2025, Series
Elizabeth: No. You were not? You were done, you were a graduate, you were studying in an institute? Are you a student?
Dominick: Just from high school actually.
Elizabeth: Oh my gosh, oh Lord! Okay, so our friend Dominik is not even a university student.
He is a high school graduate from his town in Austria. Okay. So you have not undertaken a formal course. Am I understanding you that you have not undertaken a formal course of study in visual art at a institution of higher learning. Is that correct? [00:11:00]
Dominick: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Wow. I’m gonna pause here, but stay tuned.
Dominik, and fellow VCCA artist Veronica Barker-Barzel, and Tom Kelly and I continued our visit to the Spark Lab at the Lemelson Center in the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History (shout out to our daughter, Maya Oliver, who arranged for a behind-the-scenes tour), and on to the National Gallery and the Hirshhorn Museum.
Later, Michael Oliver and I had dinner with Dominik, who stayed at our house for a night, and the three of us had an in-depth conversation about Dominik’s journey as a visual artist.
The conversation was so engrossing that (alas) I didn’t stop to record it, but I’ll summarize some of the fascinating backstory Dominik shared.
Dominik--who is now 19 or 20 years old--talked about how his immersion into visual art was super-charged by the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools in Salzburg--like in much of the world--were essentially closed for two years. Dominik was living with his dad, and--amazingly--he took the opportunity of being out of school to teach himself more drawing and watercolor techniques. He identifies as an “autodidact” --or self-taught artist--and is living proof that one does not need an institution--aka “the academy”--to develop artistic skill and excellence.
Day after day, Dominik said, he drew and painted and worked on his technique and style. He showed us photos of many of the evocative portraits and watercolors that he did during those pandemic years. They were stunning, and interestingly, very colorful. Gradually, however, he gravitated toward his signature blue tones and their liminal nuance.
Knowing that the closing of schools during the pandemic was so destructive to the learning and wellness of so many students, it was deeply moving for us to learn about Dominik’s remarkable focus and dedicated self-study. It was both reassuring and impressive!
And of course, as a tech-savvy young person, during those pandemic days and continuing to the present, Dominik creates multimedia pieces and shares all of his work in virtual spaces, and a huge following has developed.
Dominik also shared more about the particular watercolor he created and posted on social media during the pandemic that went viral. As you can see, this painting--entitled Prototype I by Dominik Gegaj--captured the haunting isolation and sense of the abyss felt by so many during the pandemic.
Prototype I by Dominik Gegaj
But someone pirated the image of Dominik’s viral artwork and claimed it as his own. Fortunately, Dominik was able--with the cooperation of social media platforms--to track down the pirate and force him to withdraw his copyright infringing use of Dominik’s artwork.
In our conversation, Dominik also spoke eloquently about his process and his vision. Rather than trying to recapture his words, I’d like to share both Dominik’s Artist Statement and Bio from his website: Home | Dominik Gegaj,
In a glorious tribute to the quintessential artist life, Dominik’s next step is to live and paint in Paris, immersed in creative communities born of shared visions and the borderless world of art. He is currently at an Artist Residency in Barcelona.
Artist Statement
My multidisciplinary work focuses on the emotional echo chambers I find myself looping back to, which I intricately explore in my watercolor paintings. The attributes of water become literal in my work, such as the reminiscence of the ocean in the blue shades, existing in this liminal, horizonless field I restrained myself to. Fragile and unpredictable is the application, and tender is each brushstroke to be taken. My Intention meets the uncontrollable flow of water, offering the viewer a realm where water mirrors the persistence of thought.
BIO
Dominik Gegaj is a multidisciplinary artist based in Austria, whose practice centers on his watercolor paintings. The traditional watercolor transforms into innovative concepts that have since branched into videos, animations, and art installations. His signature blue becomes a vessel for liminal, quiet and nostalgic narratives, shaped through carefully curated compositions.
Among his kudos are his 120K+ 120K+ Instagram Followers, as well as Residencies at the Virginia Centre for the Creative Arts (2025) and Arte in Corte, Italy (2024). He’s also been honored with a 2024. Egon Schiele Award Nomination, the 2023 Digital City Lights Prize, and the 2023 Rookie of the Year, Kunsthilfe Salzburg. He’s sold over over 25 original works sold across the U.S. and Europe.
It was indeed our pleasure to get to know Dominik Gegaj a tiny bit. We will follow his artistic career with joy and admiration and hope our paths might cross again someday.
Here’s a link to his latest show in Salzburg, Austria, as well as his website and other articles:
Dominik Gegaj: Exploring Human Emotion and Identity – The Echo
Upcoming Exhibition Salzburg: Vernissage at the Berchtoldvilla: Berchtoldvilla, Josef-Preis-Allee 12 - Vernissage: 09 January | 19:00 - Ongoing from 10 January - 19 February 2026
The Berchtoldvilla is pleased to present a new group exhibition featuring the work of Dominik Gegaj. The installation explores the “Essence of Existence” through five select works and an immersive video installation.