Portrait Marilyn Monroe (Neo-Pointilism) | Watercolor by Martin Missfeldt

Image Description

As a template for this portrait of Marilyn Monroe served the silkscreen Shot Orange Marilyn by Andy Warhol - an icon of pop art (from the Museum für Moderne kunst in Frankfurt/Main). However, I did not base my work directly on the Warhol image, but rather recreated a digital version with the help of the original photo. Thereby I wanted to achieve that I can see more plasticity in the Marilyn portrait.

Why? Ultimately, these neo-Pointilism images are, after all, about visual memory. The more one moves away from the image, the more the colored dots in the eye blur into areas. These areas, in turn, make the image more clearly recognizable. The loss of details in the distance, however, causes an intensified visual memory in these pictures. Those who know the Warhol picture (and most of them are, I assume) will remember the facial expression and thus will also be able to see it in my picture - although, of course, no details whatsoever can be seen.

Grossly simplified, the pictorial program of this Neo-Pointilism series consists of copying famous paintings without using any kind of lines. Instead, it's all about the color and its effect. To do this, I observe the original and try to extract patches of color, whose color value I then mix using watercolor. I then apply this hue to the paper, the size of the color dot is based on the size of the spot in the original.

The watercolor color is particularly beneficial to me: with it, you can not only potentially mix any color value, but also still vary the luminosity and radiance via the amount of pigment. The more watery, the paler. The range between light-pale over brightly luminous to dark-dull is enormous in watercolor.

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