Hello Kevin! Tell us a little about yourself. How did you become an artist?
Hey Lyubov! I’m a German up-and-coming painter and draftsman from Würzburg, who explores the effects of social media on topics such as beauty ideals & transience in colorful pop art paintings. I always drew in my freetime when I was a kid. My parents gladly realized that art is my talent & my passion, so they supported me with art supplies such as acrylic and oil colors and bought me a canvas stand when I turned ten. Later I became part of the local art club and started exhibiting my artworks there within collective art shows and a few years after that I also had my first solo show at the age of 18.
In your original pop art paintings, you explore the influence of social networks on topics such as beauty ideals and transience. Why are you interested in this topic?
Actually I was using instagram in the beginning of creating art just as a marketing tool to present my artworks to the world (of social media). I did not really use it for inspiration and research. But later when I was also consuming artworks and content on the explore page on instagram I discovered that not just the content itself was changing year by year, also the beauty filters in selfies and videos were changing. Everyone tried to look more and more perfect. All the content started looking more professional than ever before. I was watching how the beauty trends were going into a specific direction and decided to show the process on canvas. I wanted to show the influence of social media on young teenagers. So I kind of became an observer on Insta- I’m still having an eye on the transition and still seeing how the beauty standards are changing. It’s so fascinating to follow this journey.
At what point were you interested in pop art and why did you decide to draw works in this style?
When I was still a student, my dad bought me some books about art techniques and art styles. When I read a lot about Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol I got really inspired and soon they became my idols - I invested a lot of time in researching pop art and started experimenting on canvas to find my own style based on the famous painters of pop art. For me one of the most interesting things when it comes to pop art is that it puts topics from everyday life into an art context, so kind of everyone can connect with it.
Your current works from the series "What's beautiful?" confront the viewer with the question "What is beautiful?". How can you answer this question yourself?
Yes, in my artworks I try to explore beauty and the different facets of it. I still didn’t find a code which makes „the one“ or which is showing the true beauty of everything and everyone. In my opinion there is no final solution when it comes to a beauty ideal, as it is subjective (art as well). So my idea is that the combination of inner values, an interesting character and some extraordinary external details can make somebody beautiful.
You have worked with such brands and companies as Adidas and S.Oliver. What exactly did you create for these brands? Tell us more about this collaboration.
For adidas I was booked as an artist to supervise the opening of the adidas flagship store in the chic outlet „Wertheim Village“, which is known for its exclusive shopping experience. I created an extremely big art installation, made up of hundreds of colored duct tapes symbolizing a figure/pattern which was showing and representing the brand's identity. The entire shop window was covered with the artwork, expanding to the floor and the parking lot.
Then I was working for S.Olivers sub-brand „comma fashion“ which is a high quality fashion brand for women. I created several designs for their shopping bags to celebrate their anniversary and make the shopping process more individual – every customer got their own customized piece.
Tell us about your creative plans in the future.
Priority number one is spending the next few months in the studio creating new artworks. I already have a lot of ideas in my mind and finished some final sketches in my sketchbook. So creating art will be the main part in the next six months. I will also cooperate with a start up for a project called „DNA2art“. It will be about connecting art with science. So it means that I will put someone’s DNA information into the painting, making it more individual. I really like the idea behind it. Stay tuned!
Text by Lyubov Melnickowa @lumenicka