Guido Heller

About me

I am Guido Heller. Under the name ghKunst, I paint and draw portraits – both realistic and abstract. Which of the two it will be, I often don’t quite know myself beforehand.

For many years I built websites. Pixels, grids, everything exactly in place. Today I push charcoal dust and oil paint around, and none of it stays where I put it. I consider that progress.

What fascinates me is the journey from a blank sheet to a face. At the start there is a white surface that looks at me quite unimpressed. At the end a person looks back. In between lie sometimes 45 minutes of wild charcoal strokes, sometimes 40 hours on a single sheet – and, with one oil painting I have been working on for over a year, mostly patience. Faces have a mind of their own anyway: once I set out to draw a completely anonymous portrait, without any reference. In the end Luke Skywalker was looking at me.

What really moves me is what a face does not say. The hesitation before an answer. The glance that drops to one side. That is why my pictures are called Trauer (grief), Melancholie, Trost (comfort) or Geborgen (sheltered) – and rarely “Laughing Lady with Hat”.

“For me, portraits are an attempt to hold on to an expression – sometimes in a quick stroke, so...