Hanjo Schmidt

Born in Germany.

Hanjo Schmidt works on the basis of photographs without actually copying them. He never gives the motif precedence over the process of painting in the way realism or, even more so photorealism does.
He paints in acrylic and often uses a cheap brush applying paint in rather crude, fast strokes. His style is loud and dominant, the colours are based on what you can see but are often carried to an extreme. These are expressive paintings, and the act of painting pushes so to speak, the motifs to the background. Not for one second is there any doubt that Hanjo Schmidts art is about painting, about applying colours to canvas.
The surprising thing is that even with these crude, raw brush strokes the model is defined in a perfectly precise way. Shining eyes, pupils with sharp contours, a sinewy neck or boney shoulder blades: everything is unambiguously defined, and yet this is a type of painting that does not attempt to create the illusion of a realistic one-to-one copy of the subject matter.
The fact that we can always clearly recognize the subject matter yet at the same time know we are actually looking at a painting is a contradiction that is the real challenge in the works of Hanjo Schmidt.
As you al...

Educated at the Staatliche Kunstschule and the Hochschule fuer Technik in Bremen, Germany.
Living and working in Stuttgart/Germany.

Appointed NYFA Fellowship in Painting for 2006,