Jeffrey Hein
Revealing design through the figure
American Art Collector June 2007
In Jeffrey Hein’s new monumental work titled Twelve Shades, the artist has fit into a grid twelve individual portraits of friends, co-workers and models that when viewed together hint at Hein’s recent ideas of using the figure as conceptual and, ultimately, abstract design elements in the overall scheme of a painting.
“I want to capture the person but the meaning of the concept I’m after is all about design,” says Hein. “I want no narrative element in this work because I’m after more of that 60′s idea that paint is about the paint. But, I’m so in love with the figure and the classical approach to the figure that what I do is try to combine that with the more conceptual ideas about the paint and composition.”
To complete 12 Shades-which is five feet by five feet-Hein build scaffolding in his studio that moves the model up and down from four to six feet heights so that the model’s head would be approximately nine feet off the ground. This put Hein’s eye level about mid shin with the artist and allowed him to create the perspective of looking up at the figures instead of straight on.
“When you look at the styles of their clothes, the colors, the different types of sunglasses, the backgrounds, you realize that the painting is all about design and not really about the figures themselves,” says Hein. “The work is about color and composition but I’m still using realism to do so.”
The sunglasses on the figures help create abstract shadow patterns across the faces of the models that even further play against the colors of the background and add to the increasing complexity of these perfectly executed paintings.
“I always feel that a hard edge on an organic form helps to unify the work and bring it together,” says Hein. “In my traditional work I use light from north windows but in these contemporary works I use a single light bulb on the head which gives cast shadows on the neck and leads to a very hard line. And this is the trickiest part, although it seems so simple when you look at it.”
These techniques are important to Hein because he sees the application of paint and the inherent implications of that act as the most interesting part of the art-making process.
“I’ve been told to paint what you know about and I know about art but love the figure,” says Hein. “And by combining the figure with these abstract forms and shapes the result is works that look like total paintings and not just portraits of people.”
For collectors, Hein wants them to fall in love with these same details instead of trying to create some narrative context to place the work into.
“It annoys me when someone buys it because they relate to the p0erson in the painting. I want them to recognize it as a human but that is it,” says Hein. “If the colors and composition makes me feel something then I know it is a successful painting. If people relate to the sitter, then it’s not successful. It needs to be about composition, patterns, color-the total artistic content of the work.”
Hein welcomes the challenge of such work and feels that this contrast between style and collectibility inspires him to push the work and go against the grain.
“It’s a challenge to sell a painting of a complete stranger, especially if it is one not doing anything,” says Hein. “But I see these works as serving an artistic purpose as well as opposed to just being conceptually-driven.”
