Finding the right balance and being authentic

Marco Reichert, is a painter born and currently living/working n Berlin. He works regularly with Benoni Gallery in Copenhagen and RIBOT Gallery in Milano.

greatest inspirations or influences?

My biggest influences mostly don't come from visual art. The inspiration with the highest impact comes from nature. Structures and patterns, I find in the woods for example. I take photos and make 3D scans which I use to prepare my artworks. I'm also very much in love with digital glitch and noise. Little errors in LCD screens, JPG- artifacts, streaming errors and stuff like that. Of course, there were artists on my way, who probably influenced me but it's hard to name just a few. I had one short but intense encounter while I studied with Andre Butzer, that still comes up and I'm thinking about it and what he said.

Tell us a bit about your creative process?

My process. OK, long story. I see myself as a process-based painter.

Within the last eight years I started to include “little“electronic devices in my painting routine, which I built all by myself. It started with a pen attached to a remote-controlled car, which I navigated over the canvas. From this point on, the whole thing developed steadily and is still a very interesting field with endless opportunities. The latest machine fills almost a whole room in my studio.
Most of the time I'm working in a very classic painterly way. I create different structures and surface-conditions onto which the patterns created by the painting machines react on. Due to the fact that I built these machines by myself and I'm not a very good programmer, these devices create a lot of stuff, that's very unpredictable and this is the great thing about it. I love to surprise myself.

How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the art industry changing moving forward?

I think 2020 / 21 will change the world and of course the art world quite intensely. I guess the acceptance and need for progressive digital solutions and tools is higher than ever. On the other hand, people realize how much we suffer from not actually getting in touch with each other, to exchange opinions and share moments and feelings. It's interesting to see how we try to compensate this lack of exchange with social media apps like Instagram and clubhouse, which of course only works to a certain degree. I'm quite sure that the old system of having an art fair every week somewhere in the world will change but will not completely vanish. There will be additional ways of experiencing art, beside boring online viewing rooms, mixed with traditional shows and fairs.
On a very personal level I can just say that I came pretty good through this weird time so far and I have a lot of interesting upcoming projects.

In which way do you think social media changed the way of “being an artist today"?

I think it is kind of challenging to be part of this game. You have to be aware but not stressed about the question “how do I want the people to see me”. Spontaneously I would say: “keep it clean and professional”. I'm not interested what you had for breakfast and how it looked, how cute your cat is, and I really hate to see kids being exploited on social media profiles in any way. But it’s hard to divide the personal life from the artist’s life, because it's pretty much one thing.

So, it can be very interesting and eye opening to see what someone reads, what music this person likes and what ́s their political view. This can be the key to understand someone's work even better. I sometimes get the feeling, that some artist ́s profiles are too professional, too clean and too much like a brand. It feels as if they don't want to frighten and lose followers or collectors with their real opinions.

Thank you very much Marco .