Steffen Kern’s detailed illustrations are a beautiful illusion.
Every pass of color by the Munich-based artist Steffen Kern is aimed at reproducing the typical elements of analog photographs such as thick grain, flashes of light, particularly marked chiaroscuro; as a result his drawings are a beautiful illusion to the eye.
Born in 1988, Kern began his studies in art at a young age and to date counts countless participations in exhibitions and solo shows. His technique is simple enough to leave one bewildered, and the only materials he uses are simple cardboard on which he creates with ink, watercolour and coloured pencils.
Beginning as simple sketches, the body of Kerns “high resolution work” work consists of drawings whose subjects are constructed without using photographic or real-life references.
In order to apply the concept to the presentation as well, his works are presented according to common approaches in photography and his eerie and realistic results come from embracing blooming, depth of field, shadows caused by flashlight or different kinds of distortion. Kerns drawings are no copies of photographs or film stills – instead he searches for images in his mind, that appear to be part of our collective pictorial memory and that are thereby recognizable for the beholder. They are images of images. The mental image-pool from which he draws, includes pop culture, film, photography and the everyday.
