Skyscapes: André Hemer

André Hemer has built a strong reputation for creating highly finessed artworks that blur the distinctions between physical and digital art making. His practice is painting based, though incorporates elements of other media, particularly digital photography, image manipulation, and printmaking. Hemer often makes use of scans of paint marks and found objects to create digital imagery. These images are digitally manipulated, printed, and then over-painted with highly textural applications of paint. Ostensibly abstract, his works can also register as subtly representational; in areas they literally depict paint, flora, and skies. As such, these artworks are uniquely hybridised explorations of contemporary image-making.

Unlike his vigorously textural paintings, this new series presented in Skyscapes have flat surfaces with a deceptive three-dimensional depth. In keeping with the artist’s tendency toward technical amalgamation, these works have been produced with a combination of digital and silkscreen printing processes. The images share common elements, yet each example has unique aspects. The artist states, “I've always seen printmaking as its own primary medium for exploration. I think this is also part of the intent of making the editions unique—to create a body of work that fully explores how various approaches to colour and process can alter the feeling of each work.” This exhibition includes prints from three editions, Skyscape #1 (New Zealand), Skyscape #2 (New Zealand), and Skyscape #3 (New Zealand), all of which date from 2023.

Hemer often creates work that responds to his environment, including visual data from specific locations. He produced the scans for these works while at home in New Zealand. Consequently, the imagery includes ferns and other local flora. As in much of his recent paintings, there is also an allusion to imagery that intentionally references the extravagant stylistic flair of 17^th Century Baroque art. This is drawn in part from his experience of Vienna – the city in which the artist lives and works. Yet, Hemer’s visual language has no real precedents. The artist effectively straddles digital and conventional print methods to create a new type of hybrid image making, one that purposefully engages with the dynamic friction between digital and physical media. These prints are quietly uncanny. They resist comparison to the work of other artists, occupying a visual and conceptual space that sits outside of existing parameters.

Already a highly accomplished artist, Hemer is continuing to develop the sophisticated practice that he is known for. Central to this is his exploration of the emergent artistic possibilities arising from digital technology. This is a space ripe for innovation, and Hemer is among the vanguard of artists operating in this area internationally.