One of my favourite artists is Gerhard Richter. I have followed his work for several years now and have been lucky enough to see two of his exhibitions in London. The first was in 2009 at the National Portait Gallery and the second in 2012 at the Tate Modern. What I love most about his work is how realistic his portraits are. To me, they look like photographs. I have a postcard of Ella in our bedroom. What I love about this painting is the innocence of the girl looking down. I also like the use of colour and the blurred effect created in the artists painting. From a distance it looks like it's a photograph and it's only until you get close that you can see the brush strokes.
Ella
Another of my favourites is Betty, who is Richter's daughter. I have been lucky to see this painting in both the exhibitions I went to. I used to have a very bad print out of it but the frame broke so I just threw the whole thing away. I would LOVE to have a proper print of it... one day soon hopefully! Again, what I love about this painting is the use of colour and the fact that it is so photorealistic. He pays such attention to detail in this painting that you can almost imagine how the fabric of her clothes feels.
I was perusing the web (as I often do) the other day and came across an image that made me to the double take thing... where you bop your head like a chicken and blink to see if you have seen correctly. Anyway, I didn't follow up on this until a friend of mine emailed with a photo and said "isn't this like the painting you had?!" and there it was again...
It's clearly not exactly alike but very similar. The artist is Pete Hawkins and he currently has an exhibition on at The Outsiders gallery in Soho, London. I'm not as drawn to this painting as I am with Richter's, but it is quite interesting to see the two in comparison. I wonder if Hawkins was influenced by Richter in any way? I wonder who the girl in this painting is?
very cool - I would be surprised if this work wasn't influenced by Richter. I've only seen a few Richters in person, but they really are delightful - much more than a photo of them could ever do justice.
ReplyDeleteOh, these paintings are amazing. I really thought the first one was a photo at first. I like how the subject is distanced from you by not providing eye contact. It adds a bit of mystery. So cool to see the resemblance between Richter's and Hawkins' work.
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