July 24th, 2010
Last week I made my way to Hamburg to have a number of my paintings scanned and spend some time with friend and colleague in artistic crimes, Dennis Konstantin. Dennis uses a company called Scan Discounter to have his paintings scanned at full size in 300 DPI. The same company also does excellent paper and canvas prints from these scans.
Earlier that week I managed to persuade Norman Dziegel, the proud owner of my Gelbe Spiral painting to loan it to me, so I could take it to Hamburg for scanning. I packaged it up for the journey along with two other paintings. Meeting up with Dennis we drove out to Scan Discounter. Hidden on the ground floor of a house in the suburbs is the largest scanner I’ve ever seen. They tell me that they can scan up to 2 and half meters in length at 300 DPI. That makes for very large files, and you’d better have enough RAM on your computer to open and modify them. (drooling while dreaming…)
With the scans done in no time, we were off to Dennis’ apartment in the Caroline Quarter of Hamburg, the not so famous sister of the Schanzen Quater. Both are like a mini versions of Friedrichshain, Kreuzberg and Neukölln in Berlin. But it wasn’t the distractions of Hamburg street life that interested us. There was painting to be done!
Dennis and I have on a number of occasions have had joint painting sessions, over the internet. While it is interesting to have a bit of virtual company, to share the same space is far more productive. I am always curious to look over other’s shoulders and to see how they work. Its a great chance to trade tips on technique and talk paint.
Along with my paintings that I’d brought to Hamburg to scan, were two small collaboration pieces that we had started on, last January when Dennis was in Berlin for our Fantastic Visions exhibition. We set about finishing the two off. However, Dennis is much quicker than I and finished his, while I have not yet. I’ve included some photos below.
July 12th, 2010
Myself, Héctor Pineda and Micha Colory.Krebs
Stay still long enough and the world will come to you, or network like crazy on the internet. And so it was when Mexican digital artist Héctor Pineda came to Berlin. We first came into contact through some groups on Deviant Art. Héctor organised and edit the book, “Imagine The Imagination – New Visions of Surrealism“, selecting artists from the Deviant Art groups. I was fortunate to be one of the artists included. The “Imagine the Imagination” book project was organised with the Polish publishing house, nEgoist.
nEgoist supports Abnormals Gallery which is based in Berlin and now with a much larger gallery space in Poznan, Poland. Abnormals Gallery recently caused an outcry in Poland over a large banner bearing a swastika and naked Mickey Mouse model, adorning their new premises. If any thing, the gallery is now known before it even opens for it’s first show.
Héctor was in Berlin to meet with the directors of Abnormals Gallery to discuss a possible future exhibition that would would exhibit the artists featured in “Image the Imagination”. But while he was here in Berlin he also made time to meet up with other artists. So it came to pass when I met him on Friday night with his wife and another artist, I convinced him to come with me to pay a visit to Micha Colory Kreb’s colourful and fascinating studio. His apartment is literally a work of art in itself.
July 10th, 2010
Sinneswandeln - black light mini-golf
On a very hot Friday evening I made my way over to the Görlitzer Park in Kreuzberg. There in the only remaining buildings from the former railway station was the new cafe Isa Mitz opening. In the basement for the past three months a collection of UV artists from the Sinneswandeln project have been busy building a black light mini-golf course.
Ellen Harting headed up the project to organise painters and sculptors create 5 unique themed rooms. Ellen herself also provide a number of sculptures and installations, some also being internally lit with changing colours. One of the artists she brought in to the project was my friend Micha Colory Krebs.
I was called in on the opening night to make a photo documentation of their hard work. I had visited the worksite a number of times before, but on the opening night with all of the tools and materials cleared away and the UV lights turned on it looked very impressive. It looks like they might already have another project waiting for them.
After departing with Anja Brinkmann and stopping off for a cooling icecream, we paid a visit to Strychnin Gallery‘s latest exhibition opening “FutureScapes” featuring the artists, Michael Page, Sri Whipple, Jason Wheatley and Damon Soule. After a run of shows that didn’t interest me, Strychnin finally had some great paintings to satisfy my eye with great technique and attention to detail. Of most interest to me were the organic like collaboration pieces. While there Yasha Young had a chat to me about the many things she and the gallery are involved in. I don’t know if she ever takes a rest.
We also caught up with Wolfgang Reimers at “FutureScapes” and then later rediscovered we all our favourite vegi-burger shop in Berlin to round the evening out.
But that wasn’t to be the end of my evening, I then went on to meet up with digital artist Héctor Pineda from Mexico. But I’ll tell you more about him in my next article.
