WINTER ACTION SPORTS ART

Hanne Lore Koehler:

"My love for action and fascination with capturing a flash of movement in this motionless art form should be evident in my sports paintings. Only the experience itself can compare with the thrill I feel when I have captured an athlete in the excitement of the moment, a skier in anticipation of the next mogul, heli or gate, a figure skater in the midst of performing the best quad ever, a snow boarder out-maneuvering three formidable opponents in a snowboard cross race. Every athlete, professional or amateur, can identify with the adrenaline rush felt in that instant portrayed in my painting. This work for me is exhilarating, unrestricted, satisfying."

When composing an action painting or portrait, I usually work from a number of different photos, combining elements that I like from each to create the composition that I'm looking for - the action from one photo, the facial expression from another, the lighting effect from a third, etc. Using today's technology makes planning a layout of a composition fun. I try different arrangements and combinations until I reach a desired effect and I catch myself smiling.

Just as life and technology have evolved over the past century, contemporary action art has also evolved, reflecting today's lifestyle and using today's technology. In my opinion, the artist with vision is the one who uses modern technology to his advantage. Even a traditional painter like me can take advantage of modern technology. Digital cameras make it feasible to take hundreds of photos of the same action and computer software can aid in combining different elements from different photos to create a layout of a composition to the artist's satisfaction. It is no longer necessary for artists to expect their subjects to pose for long, exhausting periods of time. With the aid of modern technology, today's artist can paint action-packed detailed images looking at a computer layout of photo combinations to produce contemporary realistic and action-packed paintings.

To be clear, I only use photographs as reference material for my original paintings, often producing detailed pencil drawings on the canvas before I paint. My snowboarding and skiing action paintings and action figure skating portraits are hand-painted original paintings done by looking at a photograph of the subject as if the subject were posing frozen in time in my studio. They are NOT painted over top of a mechanically reproduced photograph."

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