André Wendland | Portrait of a contemporary painter

Who is André Wendland?

André Wendland is a very gifted contemporary artist from Germany.

The artist is a student at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe in the class of Tatjana Doll.

We discovered André Wendland's awesome work on Instagram and knew right away that we wanted to present him on our special feature.

The artist tells us a bit about himself:

My name is André Wendland, I was born in Leonberg in 1995 and grew up in Heimsheim (a small village in southern Germany).

I have been working voluntarily with people with disabilities for a number of years; we undertake air travel and excursions together, among other things.

Consciously and unconsciously, I draw parallels to this activity, which are reflected in my work as an artist.

The fact that this connection is rarely visible to the viewer does not matter to me at the moment. First and foremost, I am concerned with the painterly context.

For me, working with disabled people represents a familiar space in which I have been moving a lot for a long time.

Painting represents another space and for me the best, most refined, and most diverse way to process impressions and experiences.

Creating spaces also within the canvas has become more and more appealing to me over the past year.

Making layers visible that could never exist in reality in this way.

Nowadays it has become normal to spend hours in front of screens every day.

Here, too, one finds oneself in a certain way in virtual spaces that are often unrealistic.

Paintings are also something virtual on the display, but in contrast to the digital image world, they are something tangible and palpable as an object.

Inspired by cartoons and animation, I also consider the canvas as a screen and the first "televisions" are created in my studio.

In this theme, I am attracted by the impasto application of oil paint when translating it into painting.

Through the palpable thickness of the paint, I try to make the virtual motif from the digital world more real in a certain way.

In this way, I want to trigger the desire to reach out and touch the picture, as if it were actually a kind of touchscreen.

Sometimes I have a rough sketch of my paintings in front of my eyes before they are created.

But it is much more exciting for me when something develops from a layering of improvisations.

The continuation of unplanned "accidents" that arise during the painting process makes a work more interesting for me than having a picture already painted in my head before the first brushstroke is set.

In addition to some paintings, I have also made small stop-motion films using this principle, using modeled clay figures.

With the thick application and shaping of the oil paint, I also notice a certain similarity to modeling.

For a future project, I could therefore imagine an interplay between painting and stop-motion animation to create moving images in pictures.

I find it appealing to create partially moving layers within a canvas through a kind of modelling clay in combination with different painting techniques.

The process thus finds itself in a virtual pictorial space and ultimately becomes the work itself.

For the viewer, however, only the still image remains tangible in the end.

Cartoons and animation continue to be a great source of inspiration for me.

Influenced by this virtual world and the real world, I try to form my own world in my studio in a way.

When translating these impressions into the painterly, I always try to maintain a playful lightness.

There is a certain interlocking of the different spaces in which I move every day.

The reality that becomes a painting. Virtuality that becomes a painting.

Everything meets again in pictorial space and can thus become something new. Art allows me to create my own world and thus form a new space that was never there before for me, into which I may invite the viewer.

The possibilities of how this interlocking takes place, in the end, are endless.

Other cool stuff:

André Wendland also makes really amazing stop motion films. CHECK THEM OUT!

# portrait of an artist

Follow the artist on Instagram:

Image credits:

All credits go to the artist André Wendland

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We say a big thank you to the amazing and very gifted artist for sharing his work and his story with us.