TRANSFORMART + Felix Gephart

Transformart

We really wanted to visit our tutors exhibition. He is a such a cool dude we wanted to see him work exhibited! It was an extreme expedition and we got extremely lost and it took us 2 hours to get there. It turns out that it was in a place called Oberschoeneweide which is outside of Berlin!

It was such a rich experience and it was so nice to see an authentic exhibition of contemporary artwork from recognised artists from all different practices. It was based in multiple warehouses!

In the first room we went to everything was layout like a floor plan..
This installation was entitles 'Who decides if you hate?'. They wanted to create an interactive installation in which people came and sat in the bed and took a selfie of them doing so whilst watching a video of the couple re-enacting the famous John Lennon and Yoko Onos 'Make Love not War'.
It was absolutely bizarre getting on a bed in front of a whole room of people and taking a photo. It really made me question privacy and intimacy and strangers.

Then we went to the room of our graffiti teacher. You could see immediately that it was his work by looking through the room written about above!

 http://www.felixgephart.de/editorial-illustrations/various/index.html

He shared an exhibition space with his brother (who is extremely similar to him). They have always been a pair! His brother is a few years older than him and he taught him how to make graffiti... There are photos of them at it in his bother Matthews photography book. His brother is more focused on Graffiti, uraban lettering and photography rather than Felix who grew up with this but did a degree in Illustration/Graphic Design where he hid that he did Graffiti for a while as it was thought of as "respectable". However they do collaborate and they still create pieces together and you can tell that they are strong influences on each other... They also are teenage adults... They are both very much still part of the hip-hop culture (had hip-hop as their background music) and both came to their exhibition dressed all in black with t-shirt with urban graphic art on. His brother had long hair, piercings and a cap (even-though his is 45)! They are definitely young at heart and the easiest people to have a laugh and conversation with.

You can really tell that Felix's work has been strongly influenced by his Graffiti and Hip-hop upbringing. Most of his work is greyscale. In class he talked us through his work book and it was amazing to see the scale of the paintings outside of the book! I did not imagine them to be so large, but then again he works big when he does Graffiti...

This fire piece is crazily good! Fire is one of the hardest things to capture but he has the flames down to a T. He explained that the figure is the background layer and was protected when he was creating the fire with a sheet which kept the edges sharp. 
In his illustration work he doesn't use a spray can. This originated from when he was studying and it wasn't allowed to use a spray can in his studio... This lead him to use a toothbrush that he flicked as this created a similar effect and this is how he created the flames here.

I really like the pattern that he created for the background of the image- he has created a texture. Also the way that he created form through the direction of his lines. Furthermore the choice of white highlights on a black background gives the figure a more exhausted/unhappy/ struggling expression (it was look like a very different piece if inverted) 

All of his figures are created from imagination but he has an extreme and atomical understanding of the human form. This is something he taught himself after university as he found this to be an important skill that he wasn't taught for example which muscles goes where and when it is used.
I liked this section of the piece because of the body language and expressions of the figures but also because pf the building in the background. There is still detail on the building in the background (which is a different way of visualising this kind of building than I would) but it is faded and you can see the smoke covering some of it.
His visual language is very much using the same principles as spray painting with the outlines and use of white on-top of black and creating tone through directional lines.

In fact his illsutration practice has transferred into creating memorials. He has taught us about illegal and legal graffiti/uraban art and he has found spots where he can create illustrated graffiti pieces (over a long period of time). As you can appreciate it takes a long time creating graffiti because of all of the different layers and the police have an easy job if they see an unfinished illegal piece of graffiti as the know the artist is going to come back.
It is very clear to see how he has transferred his illustrative skills to the spray can and in-fact they have clearly influenced each-other through the years.

He has also created quite a lot of satirical pieces (as evident in his book) and he holds some strong but moral political views. This is important for his Graffiti work because he can can respond to situations as they happen... for example a piece of graffiti about Putin after the pussy Riot Scandal.

I couldn't resist but to buy a book from his exhibition. He had talked us through the different commissions and it would be a really good token to take away from this experience. 
More excitingly he wrote a personalised message!!!

This is an image that he was commissioned to produce as an advertisement. Cleverly, I think, he used a stamp of their logo to build up shade within the image. The logo of the company is basically what makes up this image!

This is an example of a Gephart brother collaboration. His brother does the type in the middle which is very hiphop influenced and Felix did the figures on either side and then his brother took the final photograph.

He also taught us about the importance of collaborating with different  practices. He said that with this set of photographs he didn't have a budget but could trade experiences. He needed a modal to study, he had a friend who was a photographer and practice and experience taking pictures and a model who needed photographs for a portfolio. Therefore they all collaborated and all got the experience they needed from the photos. 

He advised to 100% make friends with a photographer!!! In fact I met this photographer at the exhibition (graduate from England and they met at a life drawing class---still learning!) and he gave me some words of wisdom... You really need to embrace the facilities at university. Although the inductions are long and take up a lot of time and you would prefer to hang out with friends it is important to invest time because otherwise you will have to teach yourself how to screen-print etc. afterwards. These are things that need to be in your skill set even if you don't think you'll need it because clients might want it and its a lot harder when you are left on your own... He then said I know you won't because I told myself that every year and never did...
This is relevant as there are things I regret not doing this year, majorly the workshops...

 A lot commissions that Felix has had have been Literary drawings. This particular piece is from 'American Psycho' that he was asked to illustrate scenes from. 
This is an example of his subtle usage of colour but importantly the use of white space. He said it is very important to give the reader parts to imagine as that is what keeps them interested. Also leaving parts out can make a bigger impact than putting them in, especially when it is such a stark contrast as a very tonal chair.
He strongly advised us to create things as analogue as possible. With these illustrations he has sold most of the originals at high prices to a collector but can also sell prints for less but more of them!

There were lots of different warehouses and we explored them all. This was a room which I really liked. There were lots of figures in different positions and we were being serenaded by a Harpsichord. This was strange because you wanted to walk around and see all of the different exhibits BUT there were people standing all around the walls and you didn't want to block their sight but you kind of had to..

I really liked these figures and how the different the body language between the lady and man show what is going on. In fact one of the pieces looks like they are dancing and it reminded me of the drawings I did in Madrid of the flamenco dancers.

I really liked this exhibit. It was really difficult to photograph but it is very simple outlines of  figures in a range of positions that we humans make everyday, out of copper wire.

I am not sure why I haven't thought of this before but I have done some much continuous line drawing work and have explored figures and dancing that I should have ago at using wire to create some figures! To see how simple or complicated I can make them, and look at faces as well as the whole body!

Something that has been an ongoing exploration for me is how to layer things. I thought that these pieces were a really interest way of having different levels and they use a combination of different media with some textured/patterned and some flat colour.

I found this interesting and how the artist combined words and faces. It is something that is very relevant to what I have learnt from this summer course because we have been studying faces (theirs obviously a totally different level to use) and we have learnt about 'Palimpsest'. I also find it really interesting that they have divided their image into blocks so that the words are a shape. 
I think this piece gives the effect of a really old tea stained letter that is being investigated under an overhead projector. There is also very few dense lines (drawn and of words) and a lot of empty space.

Claudia Vitari