Up, Close and artsy with Brigitte Dietz

Brigitte Dietz: Since the age of 15, I became interested in portrait art. For example, at school, I used to draw portraits my teachers or classmates. Later, I became interested particularly into human individualities and how the human face reflects it. I began to draw with pencil and chalk in black and white, and after a while, pastels and colour. 2008, I began to paint portraits in oil and to produce portrait collages.

Brigitte Dietz: I always try to include biographical details or other important information into my portrait paintings. In order to achieve that, I was looking for possibilities to express it and began step by step to develop a style, in which (always particular and often abstract) a background refers to the actual portrait. By this inter-dependency between background and portrait I managed to develop a possibility to include not only personal living conditions, biography and oeuvre, but also express a special mood or character of the particular individual.

In a nutshell, I combine the actual portrait with abstract painting.

Brigitte Dietz: I have 8 children and raising them, I always tried to draw ‘the perfect portrait’ of each one of them. Of course perfection was not possible. Eventually, my children grew, my technique improved or changed, so I never really finished those. The more I tried, the more I learned and after a while I realized my delight in art, especially portrait art, but other types of art too.

Brigitte Dietz: At the age of 15, I began to spend a lot of time drawing, above all portraits. My art teacher Bernhard Epple supported me a great deal. My family helped me a lot too. Above all, when I drew my children or my husband in a way, they did not want to be seen or did not realize that they looked like that, etc., they always criticized my work in a productive way, reviewed some of my ‘experiments’ to develop my style and even motivated me sometimes.

Brigitte Dietz: I am particularly proud of the projects in which I work with kids. I am always very happy if children show deep interest and enthusiasm in what they do. For example, once I had a group of children by the age of 7 or 8 and we looked at the paintings they painted. They, by themselves realized, that art is not about evaluation but observing. That was a very inspiring moment for me.

Brigitte Dietz: Well, it is difficult to know what is going to happen. My career until now was always the opposite way: I made projects, painted and exhibited and after some time, in the retrospect, I realized what became of my artistic life. I think it is this openness towards the future, which is characteristic for my career as an artist. But of course, in short term, may be in a few months, there are projects planned. But in general, I try to find new ways of expression for my portraits. In particular, I am experimenting techniques of collages. So to take a guess, I will not be surprised, if I include more collage techniques in my paintings in the future.

Brigitte Dietz: It is always worthwhile to take over the hard work of presenting ideas. You always get new ones in addition!

Brigitte Dietz: via Facebook: portraitmalerei brigitte dietz
website: brigitte-dietz.de
e-mail: brigitte.dietz8@googlemail.com