Harald Hoffmann de Vere

For many years, Harald Hoffmann de Vere has been hiking across the elongated island of Hiddensee, the diversity of which he weaves into atmospheric watercolors and subtle poems. A rhapsody of our time, poetic and picturesque at the same time.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the wealth of motifs attracted landscape painters to the island formed by wind and waves between the sea and the lagoon. They were followed by writers, musicians and natural philosophers. They all came together to form a colony of artists and tried to create works of painting, literature and music in creative work that make the island’s peculiar and unique sound. Many followed them. The two world wars brought cuts; the unique, the fascination of the island, has remained – until today.

Harald Hoffmann de Vere is in the tradition of these artists. Like her, he came to the island of Hiddensee from the outside; he was born in Berlin. He had his first picturesque encounter with the landscape at Schlachtensee, which is located in the southwest of Berlin: a tree grew into the window. Another trigger for dealing with landscape painting was the small island of Schwanenwerder on Wannsee: an early picture of the island testifies to this. During his study trips to Japan – later to Bali – Hoffmann de Vere deepened his view of nature.
A cut in this development towards landscape painting in the eighties was for Hoffmann de Vere current topics on the divided city of Berlin, the subsequent growing together since reunification and the ongoing reconstruction of the city center of Berlin, which the artist pursued from his studio in Berlin-Kreuzberg can. This creates stimulating motifs for large, color-intensive paintings. The experience of an immense departure is made visible to the viewer and internalized on another level.

In 1993 Hoffmann de Vere visited the island of Hiddensee for the first time. He had no idea how this island would tie him up. He gets to know the island cosmos on long hikes. He spends weeks of sketching and painting in intensive dialogue with the ever changing nature. His life gets a deeper meaning through immersion in the diversity of life there. At the same time, his personal world begins to be reflected in the landscape. Freedom and independence are associated with this. His search for new forms of design leads through poetry and music to images full of sensuality in color. The shape takes shape in the picture. The silence on the island – only interrupted by the eternal wave of waves – becomes spiritual freedom. Now it is a matter of designing what is wanted and recognized and using color. Animate fragrance and light. This island is a challenge for a painter, because the changing lighting moods cause an almost unreal colored wealth of motifs. Even at the time of the artists’ colony, the painters dealt with the “special atmosphere”: the “forested high beach”, the “rows of houses” on the ground, the “grazing cows” and the rainbow. that spans everything. Today, as then, there is a fascination in the “clarity of the Hiddense air, whose fine gray silver charm on sultry summer days” changes everything.

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