Armin Mersmann

It’s by the keen observation that allows me to understand the person I am rendering; I could not get that knowledge from a photo alone. Although I use photography as a tool, it has many limitations; I need to see way beyond the photo image and recreate the person’s unique anatomy to capture the life missing in the photo. When you see a rendering, be it very tight or loose, you are confronted with the artist's personal vision and language. This process becomes the ultimate collaboration between the artist and the viewer. When the artist's mind, eye, and hand leaves a lasting mark, viewers of the work start their own investigation thereby recreating the process. Photo-realism itself does not interest me in the least. Realism does, details and textures do, ultimately seeing what others fail to see until they see it in my work.