Interview with Felix Martin

Hello Felix! Tell us a little about yourself. How did you become an artist?

My name is Felix Martin and Ibecame an artist with 15 because we drew portraits in school and this woke my interest for art.
So I started to learn painting portraits to connect more with my personal heroes and show my love to them

At what point were you interested in pop art and why did you decide to draw works in this style?

The first painting happened to be the cornerstone for my style. I wasn't able to paint realisticly so I looked for solutions to let the painting still work with colours and still have an effect and presence though it wasn't realistic.
These bright colours led me to pop-art. It started as a way out.

You create unique, colorful portraits of famous personalities. Why are you interested in this particular topic? What determines the choice of personality in your works?

I look up to so many people, so when I draw them, every artwork is a tribute to them by a huge fan. And as a fan the artwork with all its colour, brushstrokes, quotes, composition and size is determined to fit right on to the pictured person. As I drew them I noticed people build connections to my paintings, not only do they exactly know what they see because the image through the pop-art style is supposed to be recognizable, they also know the person and have a personal history with them and their art.

How was the style formed in your works and how would you characterize it?

Since the first painting I used bright colours to compromise my lack of skill for realism. First I studied the works of Van-Gogh colour palette and copied this in my work, afterwards I learned about Keith Haring, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. I read books about Pop-Art and other Art-Styles, Art-History, the most famous Paintings of all time and all their artists and their movements. Every artist, every book and every style influenced my style and now a days I use everything I see. My personal style can be seen as Neo-Expressionism, Pop-Art, Abstract, Graffiti.

Is there any message in your works? What thoughts should they evoke in the viewer’s mind?

Most paintings by me are designed to capture precisely the person that is pictured with how they appeare to be through Interviews and their work and how I feel about them, how I view them.
The colours and brushstrokes harmonize with the idea to present the character of the person.
Ofcourse I'm not as good as I want to be. The viewer should look at the painting and feel the person, their art, their presence.