Hermann Valentin Schmitt
Paintings and Light Installations
since 1999 Studio in Berlin
1998 - 2000 Academy of Music “Felix – Mendelssohn – Bartholdy” Leipzig, multimedia projects
1998 Working and residence in California, USA
1992 - 1999 Studio in Leipzig
1978 - 1990 Work in industry
1978 - 1991 Studio in Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart
from 1976 Stay abroad in Frankreich, Griechenland, England
1968 Prize from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste
1965 - 1971 Studies of Free Painting with Prof. Sonderborg Staatl. Akademie der Bildend. Künste Stuttgart and with Howard Hodgkin, Bath Academy of Art
1943 Born in Heidelberg
Colours over the river chao phraya
The districts of Bangkok are strung like beads along the Chao Phraya. Today, from up here on the 12th floor near the Rama 8 Bridge, it gleams like pure silver. Now, this morning, it is plunged in wonderful red light. This especially pale red that comes into being only in this moment in the morning fog burns itself indelibly into my memory.
“You cannot step into the same river twice...” The insight of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is also true of our perception of colors today. We never see the same thing twice. Our brain always perceives mere portions of reality. All we see are mosaics of a never-ending river of events that flows through us; we piece it together again, constructing our own very personal world.
We human beings have the peculiarity of halting, holding, capturing parts of this river of perceptions because we are impressed by the aesthetics and because we need this selective memory to orient ourselves. We perceive more than we can consciously process and store in our brain. However, our very personal selection of sensory impressions is both a constraint and an incredible advantage, namely the possibility of acreative synthesis. When millions of people, at all times and in all parts of the world, construct their own, individually-perceived world, each person opens up a new world view, a new understanding of the world, a new possibility of seeing things.
Yet time and events flow onward like the Chao Phraya. When we human beings look at a river or the spectacles of light in the sky that impress us every morning and evening, our consciousness of colors arises mainly from the refraction of the light through the water.
The sunlight, refracted through drops of water in the air, makes the spectrum of colors appear. It captures our attention, is etched deeply in our collective memory. It creates an internal image within us that influences our feelings and conceptions. My aim is always to visualize this internal image, with its positive aesthetics, when I stand before an empty canvas, lean over it and begin to play with colors in pigments until I feel that I have given perfect form to this internal image of mine.
