Hyperrealism is one of the most recent and probably most misunderstood art movements of the post-modernist era. It’s one of the most misunderstood, in my opinion, for two main reasons:
1). People think it’s good because it looks super realistic.
2). People think it’s bad/pointless because it looks super realistic. (we have cameras for this).
Hyperrealism isn’t a bunch of artists who still think art is about how much you can make your image look like the real thing. One of the most notable things about hyperrealistic paintings (after the fact that they look super-realistic) is they’re size. These paintings are huge – the size of Rothko’s colour fields and bigger. Hyperrealism is widely regarded as psychological art. That sounds pretty weird given that many abstract paintings or indeed any art at all could be called ‘psychological’ because of the way the mind interacts with it. Hyperrealism, however, is about capturing a moment of emotion, a moment of expression or reaction. It’s about taking that moment and blowing it up so it’s huge and exploring every detail of that expression or emotion and communicating it exactly how you want it to be communicated. Hyperrealism is a very human form of art. It’s a focus on the psyche of the face in the image and an exploration of how expression communicates emotion and in turn how other humans respond to that.
This is ‘Sleep 22’ Acrylic and Oil on canvas from Gottfried Helnwein’s 2004 ‘Sleep’ series. The painting itself is incredibly dark and very minimalist in it’s use of colour. In a similar way to Kandinsky’s stripping away of intricate detail and complex combinations of colours to create a focus, Helnwein strips away the complex colours of the human face and uses simple dark colours that communicate a much calmer but also more muted feel – perhaps reflecting the feeling of being asleep. Obviously this matches the reality that people sleep in the dark and so obviously the painting are dark but I believe the darkness is also there to isolate something more. Helnwein certainly creates an intense focus on the expression of the child.
Children are a huge feature of Gottfried Helnwein’s works. Some of his paintings are incredibly political such as the epiphany series. Others are very simply about conveying innocence and in some cases, the ways in which the modern world has destroyed innocence in people who are still so young. Helnwein throws at you the faces and expressions of young girls, responding to whatever theme Helnwein has chosen for that particular painting. Often with hyperrealism, the name is one of the most important parts of the art as a whole.
“Sleep 9” – another from the sleep series, is a slightly lighter painting than some of the others in the same series. The expression on the face is quite hard to decipher. Many of these paintings express stages of sleep such as dreams, nightmares, deep sleep and light sleep. The previous one, being darker and less clear, I think is an expression of deep sleep. This one however is much lighter and clearer and the expression is quite an empty one, not unhappy but not entirely uplifting either. Maybe it’s expressing an empty state of mind or possibly the strange feeling of awareness when you’re asleep and you realise you’re asleep.
This painting is not from the ‘Sleep’ collection, but rather the 2009-2013 ‘Murmur of Innocence’ series. These paintings are all of children with incredibly interesting carefully painted expressions that beautifully communicate the idea of innocence past the contrasting grey backgrounds and ominous connotations of black studded jackets. These paintings are very political, reflecting Helnwein’s opinions on the the influences of society on children and how it affects this idea of ‘innocence’. These paintings are much brighter than the sleep series and features of the skin and hair are much more clearly painted in which in my opinion is what creates the idea of ‘innocence’.
AS Level Fine Art 