Art in Hamburg with Dennis Konstantin
July 24th, 2010Last 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.
