Simon Thon studied at the Ruhr Academy of Fine Arts and subsequently worked in advertising before becoming a freelance photographer. His photographic work also maintains a clear artistic expression. Nevertheless, painting remains his true focus. In his studio, his work evolved from early figurative, realistic motifs to increasingly freer abstraction. He rejects the constraints of a single style and understands art as an open process. His painting thus becomes an intimate form of communication and, at the same time, an instrument for understanding the world and its current tensions. Social contradictions, frictions, and shifts act as underlying forces in his paintings, lending them both emotional and intellectual urgency.