All my life I’ve been painting, drawing and photographing, but never before I painted portraits.
The reason for this is that -imho- humanity already looks too much at itself and can only see the world from its own point of view.
I'm still of that opinion, but on the other hand: I got bored of painting abstracts and landscapes.
Philosophy is important, but you have to stay practical. And portraits do sell better than abstracts as well.
In order not to completely contradict my own ego, I decided to paint not so much people, but emotions. It’s so easy to lie to yourself…
Materials and techniques applied
I’ve some experience in painting, mainly with acrylic paint on paper. I know that oil on canvas is the way to go for the true professional painter, but I chose differently. Mainly because I don't want to get stuck on a 600-year-old technique, when there are so many new possibilities.
Not that I hate painting, on the contrary, I do love it. In fact I still consider it more versatile than digital painting, but it has its limitations too. The biggest drawback is that clunky physical square canvas, which fills your attic and you can't upload to the internet.
I do love vector drawing, though. That must me my technical soul. The Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is so much smarter, more efficient, and more versatile than bitmaps, I can't even imagine why we're sticking to our JPEGs, PNGs, and TIFFs. So, SVGs are cool, but it's a heathen job to create them by hand.
Anyway, I decided to combine what I’m experienced in with what I love best. I start my artworks as acrylic painting, vectorize them and process them further as SVG on my computer.
And okay, because not everyone is used to SVG yet, I'll eventually make it a JPEG so I can sell them… You have to stay practical, as I mentioned before.
The blockchain is my savior
Until a year or two ago (2020), of course, there was no market for digital artwork at all. Pictures - artistic ones included - on the internet are almost completely outlawed and can be copied ad infinitum. Incidentally, there is less wrong with that than many copyright organizations would have you believe. But it's hard to earn a living with it, though. And then came Ethereum, the blockchain with NFTs.
I'm not going to explain how and what, but NFTs really are the wet dream for every artist (m/f). They enable artists to create and sell digital art to collectors and fans in a way that is efficient and reliable. And fun for collectors at the same time.
You will find my work on the NFT marketplace called “MakersPlace”, check out my gallery!
The worx
Now, about two years and a Covid pandemic later, I can proudly present you a series of fifteen portraits (still counting)!
I am now convinced that I will never process all emotions (in a work of art), but the most important (?) are already completed and for sale. To name but a few: “Grief”, “Aggression”, “Freedom”, “Anger”, “Cool”, “Fear”, “Sadness”, Sunk in Thoughts etc. etc.
As an example I have included the portrait "Cool" below - in low resolution. Please note that to enjoy all the details in full resolution of 11,865 x 16,666 px, you should visit the page with this work in my gallery.
I am fortunate that most of the works from this series have already been sold and found a new home with a caring collector. So if you want to get one for yourself, you have to be either quick and buy one from my gallery, or you have to be willing to spend some (crypto) money and buy one from a collector!
