Hi all
my first post to Wet Canvas. Great forum. I spent 2 hours recently looking at Gottfried Helnwein's website and was initially very impressed. What I first thought was a moden realist master painter on my screen, rivaling the talents of Gerhard Richter soon became apparent that "other methods" had top be at play. Any artist who has slaved over the rendering process and especially if working in oils on a large scale knows that it can take 1 - 2 years to complete a finsihed painting. So I was racking my brain and concluded that he MUST be airbrushing the undercoats on the portraits (See site www.helnwein.com) I searched all the images of his studio and him working there and not one mention of using airbrushing or the use of an aircompressor was visable. But then I figured his output was at times more than a human could possibly produce in this style with oils so then I concluded he was using a massive digital acrylic plotter / printer and adds his "oil touchups". You can see him in the pics with his small brushes.
OK yo ask - so what. Here's what galls me. Look over his site and you 'll no doubt see that he does everything to rpoject a modern "painterly" master. Look at the tables of piants / brushes and mediums. Yes I was fooled in the beginning too. No sign of that ink plotter, compressor or computer or assistants or underpaintings etc. Personally I would admire the man more if he had the upfrontness to say this is how I do things on the site. Yes his choice of images sourced from his excellent photowork is great but sadly he gets more credit for projecting himself as a modern painterly master and judging from the Guestbook (administered and edited by him- ;) ) all the innocent art lovers have fallen for the "impression". Helnwien does say in an interview that sure he does use plotters and computers - I just wish his website's pictures would clearly pay homage to that process and not otherwise mislead the viewer to think traditional methods were at play here. Now I still think Richter is the greatest living modern painter alive. (IMHO!)