Daniel Heidkamp
Daniel Heidkamp （American , b. 1980, based in Brooklyn, New York）
BFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA in 2003.
当同时代的大多数艺术家仍在寻求模仿盗用和花费心思在选择更新媒介的时候，Daniel Heidkamp却一如既往的紧密跟随着前辈爱德华·霍珀，大卫·霍克尼和彼得·多伊格的绘画传统。无论是从他的家乡新英格兰的自然风景，布鲁克林的室内装饰，还是南佛罗里达的人为装饰，艺术家Daniel Heidkamp都借助一种“狩猎”般的方式进行创作。用艺术家自己的话来说：我只是静静地和画布呆在户外，捕捉这个寻常世界中与众不同的时刻。
艺术家王玉平说过，去看一幅画要用脑分析它好在哪里，不好又在哪里。Daniel Heidkamp的作品给让我眼前一亮，但惊喜过后的理性分析让我更清楚地认识到他的画好在哪里。他继承了霍珀的写实基础和绘画语言对人情绪的影响，霍克尼对色彩的敏感和造型的自由以及多伊格的梦幻气息和对细节必要的抽象化处理，并且又能把以上优势恰到好处的结合形成自己独特的风格。Daniel的造型概括能力和对色彩的处理甚至更要优于上述三位；虽然有着极强的概括能力，但Daniel的作品中丝毫也没有忽视细节，任何优秀的作品都不会完全放弃细节，而是如何对待和把控细节。
来看Beautiful Savage对Daniel的访谈
Beautiful Savage: What are you working on for White Columns?
The White Columns show comprises paintings inspired by the grounds of Central Park behind the Metropolitan Art Museum. A number of these, including: “Mother’s Met,” “The Dye Is Cast Met,” “Off the Grid Met,” and “Dad Met,” I painted live on the spot and from direct observation.
Others were developed in the studio from all available source material. These include: “Metropolitan High,” Vision Zero Met” “Moves That Matter,” “Crest Met,” “Powdered Wig Met,” “Cosmic Giggle Met,” and “Earth Day Met.” I choose this setting as a subject because it is one artful place that provides a maximum chance for painting beauty and intelligence. Included in the group is a cluster of figure paintings and portraits of some of the people who join me as I go.
Who are a few painters you consistently return to?
I often have art books open on the floor around me as I’m painting. I spend a lot of time with 19th century painters from France: the big boys, like Manet, Monet, and Renoir. I always have my nose in my Fairfield Porter books too, although weirdly feel like I haven’t seen much of his art in person. When I’m at the Met I like to look at paintings by Sargent and Rubens. I appreciate the thrust towards abstraction and attitude of much 20th-21st century painting, but I feel like the best techniques are in the old school — so I start there.
Are you reading anything at the moment? Does reading influence your work at times or your creative process?
Right now I’m into reading technical art books or anything that has the whiff of secret knowledge. I recently acquired “The Illusion of Life” written by two of Disney’s original animators. It’s basically a textbook that generously illustrates the otherwise unseen processes and rules behind classic animation. Even more mind bending is Salvador Dali’s “50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship.” It’s a mix of hardcore oil painting tricks that only a master could know, combined with super weird surrealist thought experiments. Half the book seems like he’s just messing with you, but there is information embedded in those pages that changed my process overnight.
Looking for secret knowledge sounds like a noble cause. Where do you start when beginning a painting? You say there’s a maximum chance for painting beauty and intelligence in Central Park. Are there emotional triggers, associations, or memories there as well?
Specifically, the place where it happens for me is around the grounds of the Met. Besides it being a being beautiful terrain, with blossoms, tree canopies, modernist and classical architecture, I’m also interested in the idea of the museum as symbol. It is the safe house of our finest art—painting on those grounds suggests how the landscape can never escape the weight of history. When painting there I’m both communing with the masters, but I’m outside of the institution, connecting, aspiring, but still removed. The image of the Met— the walls and glass—seem impenetrable, but in the paintings there is slippage, moments that break through—break through into history, into luxury, the future, nature, into feelings of a higher mind and universal connection.
Who are the subjects in these paintings? You’ve mentioned there is one of your wife and son. What from a person gets into a painting, specifically? Is it more the gestures, the feeling of their interaction with those around them, their essence?
All of my people are painted from life. Besides my wife and baby son, there are other young mothers from my neighborhood in Brooklyn, as well as a portrait of my friend Elena who works in the art industry and recently posed at my studio. When I paint a person I usually just sit with them and look and we talk for a while. I like a pose that looks comfortable and easy. When working with another person, there are always surprises. How will they recline into a seat? What will they wear? I try to respond to what’s in front of me. The process can be tricky, but sometimes magic happens.
Daniel的最新展览现场