Valentin Hirsch, animal symmetry
He makes a right line, a frank and sure diagonal. He cuts in two what represents himself, as well as the world in which it wades. His intelligence follows an obsessive and subversive logic. He dreams in black when of other dream in rose. He extracts the obvious fact of his world on some graphite and the skin, of which he fell madly in love.
Valentin Hirsch is a member of those whom for the art is a whole thing. He so climbs on the scale of his talent by engraving skulls and animals heads. It engraves to make us faint, so much his upside down drawings are jealous of us. He also draws to tell us that he has nothing else to do. He draws to pass on the passion and nothing else.
© Ana Santl and Georg Schober
Meeting with one of the artists of our « Planchettes » exhibition.
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Hi Valentin! Everything seems going well for you. You are overbooked, right?
Yes, thanks. I feel blessed receiving many emails from people that are truly interested in my work. They come up with great ideas and give me a lot of artistic freedom in the design.
Tell me more about your background?
I studied art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria. During my studies I had the chance to experiment with different media and styles. Soon I concentrated on drawing and etching, along with some sculptures.
In this period I developed a pool of themes and subjects that I dealt (and still deal with) and my works took a specific aesthetic direction. After years of working as an artist I decided to expand my creative field of work. I moved to Berlin in 2010 to learn tattooing and ever since my main medium is the tattooing.
© Ana Santl and Georg Schober
Your art is really atypical, easily distinguishable from the others, technically marked by a real identity : this is a mixture of wild animals, geometric forms and skulls – authentic trompe-oeil that we toss and turn in all directions. Our eyes are constantly seeking.Where did you get all these ideas? What are your influences, your inspirations?
As I said before , I spent a long time drawing and working on specific compositions and themes. These are still working in me and what has changed in the meantime is the medium. And with the new medium, the human skin, I not only continued my work, but found new new ways of expression, a new visual language. Inspiration can be everything. But of course this “everything” underlies my personal attitude, my view of the world and my individual place that I have in this world.
© Ana Santl and Georg Schober
© Ana Santl and Georg Schober
Apart from the ink and the skin, what are your other passions or pastimes?
An important part of executing a tattoo project is drawing, and a great favor for collages.
You are part of Planchettes exhibition. What attracted you the most in this project?
It’s been a while now that I got the kind invitation to be part of the planchettes project. Basically, I just liked the idea of making tattoo artists work with a totally different medium, and see what comes out. I like challenges so I took part in the project!
What is the craziest thing that you’ve experienced since you do this job?
Oh, that’s a difficult question. I guess every single tattoo project holds it’s own craziness. And it’s always intense as fuck ?
© Ana Santl and Georg Schober
Finally, if we come to see you in Berlin, where would you take us necessarily?
to my studio of course!
>> Follow the work of Valentin Hirsch on his Facebook page and his official site
Special thanks to – iGNANT – providing us all the photos.
