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Udo Dietrich
Quick access : Watercolors Nude drawings Landscapes |  born 1957 professor at Hafencity University Hamburg (until 2023) lives in Freiburg I work as a painter and a scientist in Freiburg. Whenever I overdo it in one profession, I feel the urge to balance myself out in the other. What both have in common is a preoccupation with people. Especially the behavior of people among fellow human beings. Everyday experiences are processed and translated into a pictorial language. The representations are certainly figurative, but never directly illustrative. Some of the images are based on a real model, but this is reduced and abstracted in favor of the message and aesthetics of the work. Supplementary, there are elements added purely from the imagination, right up to pictures whose content is developed entirely from the artist's inner world. The figures tell of one or their way of life. In all of them there is a part self-portrait and a part of my counterpart. The watercolors tell of everyday experiences that have left an impression in one way or another, of life in a big city, of life as a human being among his fellow human beings. Each picture - story is based on a true, personal incident. But at the same time, the message is so general that each viewer can read his or her own, probably very similar, story into it, and also feel reminded of personal experiences. The individual pictures together form a kind of diary, only not in written form. The respective year of creation shows how new stories have been recorded over a very long period of time. The picture and its title form a unit; only the two together make up the story. Nude drawings arise from the dialog between painter and model in an intimate and relaxed atmosphere. After a pose has been found, the room fills up with reports about the latest (also personal) events. The ideal painter is a good listener. At the same time, the first figure is formed piece by piece on the paper. Then the entire work begins to develop spontaneously in its own, previously unplanned direction. Free areas on the paper are filled with further poses. Finally, several bodies are arranged on the drawing, which seem to enter into a dialog with each other piece by piece in a parallel world. The composition is completed and alienated with additions from the real world in the studio (cushions, blankets, sculptures, etc.) and from the imagination. In addition to gaining a stimulating conversation while drawing, the painter's motivation is to show that the human being is something very beautiful and that it should be seen as an urgent task to preserve this and all other wonders of nature for future generations. Freiburg, Hamburg and Nice are each cities with very specific landscapes that tempt you to go on numerous hiking excursions. The motifs are based on photographs taken by the artist himself; they reflect his own personal view of the landscape. The direct view of the sometimes very well-known main sights of the cities is avoided. These are the “second” views of motifs, which only in their combination and totality create an impression of the specific landscapes.
All the motifs are real, but sometimes somewhat hidden in the landscape. You have already seen it, but where exactly is it? The color scheme remains largely faithful to the original; watercolor and pastel were chosen as the technique. |
| © All of the images on this website are copyrighted original artworks by their author and are protected by international copyright law. No materials in this gallery may be reproduced, copied, downloaded, or used in any form without written permission of the contemporary artist Udo Dietrich.
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